CO2 emissions inequality in Africa: Regional analysis and strategies for climate justice

Africa faces the challenge of advancing economic development while ensuring environmental sustainability, particularly in addressing CO2 emissions disparities. Although the continent contributes modestly to global emissions, significant internal inequalities complicate climate policy. Conventional policies overlook these disparities, treating Africa as homogeneous. This study examines CO2 emissions inequality across five African regions (2000–2020) using World Bank data and the Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition. The results reveal a gradual decline in total CO2 emissions inequality, with the Gini coefficient decreasing from 0.689 in 2000 to 0.639 in 2020, signaling slow progress toward equitable emissions distribution. Inter-regional inequality remains the dominant driver (56–61%), highlighting stark disparities between high-emission regions like North and Southern Africa and low-emission regions including East and West Africa. Transvariation effects (24–28%) underscore growing cross-regional emissions interactions, while intra-regional inequality (14–15%) remains relatively stable. Regionally, North Africa achieved the most substantially reduced internal inequality (0.464 to 0.337), whereas East Africa exhibited persistently high levels (0.714–0.713). The inter-regional analysis further reveals strong disparities between North-Southern and Southern-West Africa, though some convergence is observed post-2014. Key policy recommendations include expanding renewable energy, harmonizing emissions standards, diversifying economies, and establishing a continental emissions equity index to enhance accountability.