Strategic Environmental Commitment and Climate Change in Africa: Evidence on Mining and Deforestation
Date
2021-09
Authors
Azomahou, Théophile T.
Ouédraogo, Mahamady
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Abstract
This paper addresses two issues on the link between mining, deforestation and
environmental policy in Africa using a panel data of 35 African countries spanning
over 2001-2017. First, we study the relationship between mining and deforestation.
Our findings suggest that mining increases deforestation while environmental policy
contributes to reduce deforestation in mineral resource-rich countries. An increase in
mineral rent by a one-point percentage of GDP leads to forest loss of about 50 km2
.
Moreover, regional economic community has heterogeneous effects on deforestation
consistent with the coordination policies. Second, we test the implication of these
results for uncoordinated environmental policies using two measures: a de jure and
a de facto environmental policy. Our results support that countries adopt a strategic
behavior in response to the environmental policy of their neighbors. A 1% increase
in neighbors’ environmental commitment increases one’s own environmental
commitment by 0.3% and 0.8% for de jure and de facto respectively. We document
that this strategic behavior leads to a race to the top for de jure environmental
policy and a race to the bottom de facto environmental policy. As African countries
increasingly engage in de jure environmental enforcement, their de facto efforts to
mitigate climate change are slackening.
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Keywords
Deforestation, climate change, mining, environmental policy.