Clean energy transition and income poverty in sub-Saharan Africa: fiction or factual?

The global shift to cleaner energy, aimed at carbon neutrality and environmental health, faces significant challenges in developing countries due to high costs and dependence on fossil fuels. In this light, this study examines the impact of cleaner energy transition on income poverty in 44 sub-Saharan African countries using panel method of moment quantile regression (MMQR) and quantile regression with nonadditive fixed effect models. The empirical findings reveal heterogeneous effect of clean energy consumption on income poverty. On one hand, the results show that renewable energy adoption reduces the incidence of extreme poverty in countries with low-to-medium poverty levels. On the other hand, renewable energy consumption exacerbated income poverty in countries with high extreme poverty. Also, fossil fuel consumption moderates the extreme poverty, explaining some resilience towards cleaner energy adoption. The study recommends integrating pro-poor policies into cleaner energy strategies through subsidies and cost reductions in energy efficiency and renewable energy.