A global panel study on urbanization and energy consumption as drivers of black carbon emissions

Black carbon is a short-lived climate pollutant formed during the incomplete burning of fossil fuels. It has turned out to be a significant cause of global warming, climate change and air pollution. This paper examines the impact of urbanization and fossil fuel energy consumption on black carbon emissions across 125 countries from 2005 to 2022 with the help of both panel regression and multiple linear regression model estimated using OLS. The results of the F-test, LM test and Hausman test support the Fixed Effects Model at the p value < 0.01 level. This includes strong country-specific heterogeneity among MLR that indicates countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, Romania, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Namibia, demonstrating a strong positive significance between urbanization and fossil fuel energy consumption on black carbon emissions. In contrast, developed countries such as Iceland, Belgium and Canada, UK, Ireland and many others have negative or weak coefficients, suggesting the positive impact of clean technologies and stricter policies. The novel contribution of this study lies in combining global coverage with heterogeneous country level impact analysis and suggestions for policymakers with evidence-based insights on integrated urban planning and energy efficiency that will help to reduce black carbon emissions and achieve sustainable development goals such as promoting good health and wellbeing (SDG3), fostering sustainable cities (SDG11) and climate action (SDG 13). Not applicable.