Climate Change, Population Growth, Deforestation and Economic Growth: A Tale of Twenty Most Populous Countries

The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of climate change, population growth, deforestation and economic growth in-relation to the twenty most populous countries using System Generalized Method of Moments (S-GMM) and the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) technique and employing data that spans from 1996 to 2023.The study reveals that population growth dampens the adverse effects of climate change that have the potential to increase economic growth while economies with high levels of deforestation are unable to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change that have the potential to thwart economic performance. The study recommends that Governments across the globe should promulgate laws that accelerate the development of human capital so that there are a greater number of talented people who mitigate the negative effect of climate change on economic growth and stimulate sustainable growth within the economy.