Deforestation and economic dynamics in sub-Saharan Africa: Does electricity fluctuations matter on forest conversion?

Electricity fluctuations and deforestation in tropical forests and developing countries are significant threats to the environment and climate change, influencing forest, land degradation, and biodiversity loss. The inconsistent energy supply such as electricity forces industries and households to rely heavily on expensive and polluting alternatives, especially in rural areas, further straining economic resources and contributing to deforestation. This study contributes to the existing literature by assessing different shapes of Environmental Kuznets Curves for deforestation (EKCd) on economic development and forest conversion in the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region, dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) with homogeneity variance characteristic used with a balanced panel data from 2000 to 2020. The results show the presence of inverted U-, N-, and conventional M-EKCd, economic growth indicates to influence the forest transition proposition and increasing rural-urban accessibility of electricity, clean fuels, and technologies for cooking influence a reduction of forest conversion rates in the region. The study found significant impacts on the growing population, international trade, and agricultural area; hence, the current study suggested that enhanced environmental policy and collaboration with advancements in clean energy accessibility can reduce deforestation rates and pave the way for inclusive development and sustainable forest resource exploitation.