Elements Shaping Zambia’s GDP-CO2 Nexus: An Autoregressive Distributed Lag Approach to Cointegration

As the world grapples with the effects of climate change, central to this problem is the increased rate of greenhouse emissions. Inquiries globally have examined climate change's impacts on health, economy, and wildlife, among other areas. In this study, we investigate the relationship between greenhouse gases (GHG) emission per capita and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and how inflation, urban population growth rate and unemployment influence this nexus in Zambia using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration. Results reveal that in addition to having a long-run relationship, greenhouse emission per capita Granger cause GDP per capita which in turn Granger causes a number of other macroeconomic variables. Therefore, analysing greenhouse gas emissions allows for GDP forecasting, which in turn can be used to predict other macroeconomic variables thereby revealing climate change's substantial economic threats particularly for a developing country like Zambia.