Introduction
The dependence on non-renewable energy sources has been a major
driver of economic growth in South Africa. Economic growth benefits
the society via the provision of infrastructures, improvement in living
standards and employment creation. However, it has its downsides,
especially when an economy pays less attention to its natural
environment while intensifying its desire for affluence (Uddin et al.
2019; Yasmeen et al. 2020). In Africa, South Africa is arguably the
most developed. This development comes with employment
generation, improved welfare, export expansion and a foreign direct
investment (FDI) inflow. Now, keeping pace with this development
comes at a cost to the environment. It has inflicted a trade-off
between higher economic growth and lower environmental quality.
Therefore, despite flourishing in terms of economic performances,
the environmental attributes in South Africa have persistently
deteriorated over time as the country now harbours an ecological
deficit territory Global Footprint Network (GFN), 2019. An ecological
deficit territory is the one where the ecological footprint (EF) is
higher than the biocapacity (Siriwat, Tiedt 2019; World Wildlife
Fund, 2018). In South Africa, for instance, the biocapacity and EF
were respectively 1.46 global hectare (gha) and 3.35 gha in 1990.
The biocapacity dwindled to 1.26 gha, whereas the EF stood at 3.05
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gha in 2000. In 2010, the EF soared to 3.60 gha, leading to a decline
in the country’s biocapacity to 1.08 gha. In 2017, the country’s
biocapacity declined to 1.03 gha, whereas its EF was 3.16 gha (GFN,
2019).
The ecological footprint is measured in global hectare of land. It
measures the effects of anthropogenic activities on grazing land,
crops land, ocean, forest products, carbon footprint and built-up
land. Previous studies have used the EF to capture the influence of
anthropogenic activities on the natural environment (Zameer et al.
2020; Destek, Sinha 2020; Zhang et al. 2020; Nathaniel 2020; Marti,
Puertas 2020; Ulucak et al. 2020; Omoke et al. 2020; Baz et al. 2020;
Yilanci, Pata 2020; Dogan et al. 2020; Altıntaş, Kassouri 2020; Zhang
et al. 2020; Usman et al. 2020; Sharif et al. 2020).
The link between natural resources (NR) extraction and the EF has
been explored adequately well in the literature. According to Danish
et al. (2019), economic growth is always accompanied by
urbanisation and industrialisation. The latter encourages NR
extraction, which could promote environmental degradation by
reducing biocapacity. Activities such as mining, bush burning and
deforestation have adverse effects on biodiversity as well as other
components that support human existence (Balsalobre-Lorente et
al. 2018).There is still no consensus on the impact of NR extraction
on the EF. For instance, Zafar et al. (2019) and Ulucak et al. (2020)
have discovered that NR extraction contributes to the well-being of
the environment, whereas Hassan et al. (2019a, b) and Ahmed et al.
(2020a, b) reported the opposite.
This study seeks to examine the NR–EF nexus in South Africa by
considering the role of human capital and urbanisation. This study is
super useful for South Africa, where economic advancement has
intensified NR extraction, especially coal, due to large energy
demand and the desire to earn foreign exchange. Unlike Japan,
Germany, the USA, Italy, France and other developed countries,
South Africa generated 94.6% of its electricity from coal sources in
2005, 94.7% in 2006, 93.7% in 2013, and 92.7% in 2015. Although it
reduced to 88.0% in 2017, South Africa had a coal power generation
capacity of 39 GW as of 2018 (World Development Indicator (WDI),
2019). Coal is a non-renewable energy source that increases the
emission of noxious gases capable of causing environmental
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deterioration. Recent studies have alluded to the adverse effects of
coal consumption in South Africa (Joshua et al. 2020; Joshua, Bekun
2020; Magazzino et al. 2020; Udi et al. 2020). As a result of being the
biggest economy in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the urbanisation
rate—as well as CO2emissions—have been on a stable rise in South
Africa (Ndoricimpa 2017; Salahuddin et al. 2019). The urbanisation
rate was 64.31%, 64.82%, 65.30%, 65.85%, 66.35% and 66.85% in
2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively (WDI, 2019).
South Africa is currently the 14th highest emitter in the world
(Salahuddin et al. 2019). The excessive exploration of NR could
impact the EF (Zafar et al. 2019). Natural resources such as forest
and croplands reduce human-caused emissions (Panayotou 1993;
GFN 2018), whereas resources such as coal and oil decline
environmental quality (Ahmadov, van der Borg 2019).
The link between NR consumption/exploration and economic
growth cannot be overemphasised. The early stage of development
is associated with increased energy demand with little attention to
environmental quality. As the economy expands further, the
demand for renewables, energy-efficient commodities, a clean
environment and NR preservation is desired. Thus, environmental
quality improves. This is the intuition behind the Environmental
Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis (Nathaniel et al. 2021a).
To curb environmental degradation, sustainable management
practice is required for resources to regenerate. Education and
skilled human capital are needed for the sustainable consumption of
NR. Education creates the required awareness to adopt
environmental-friendly and energy-efficient technologies (Nathaniel
et al. 2021b; Zafar et al. 2019). A skilled human capital contributes
to a nation’s economic growth and also sees the need to uphold
environmental quality. For these reasons and more, this study
considers human capital in the NR–EF nexus for South Africa.
The contributions of this study are as follows:
I. This is a seminal study to investigate the relationship between
NR, human capital, economic growth, urbanisation and the EF
in South Africa’s context. Additionally previous studies on South
Africa have overlooked this important demographic variable—
human capital in the growth-environment nexus.
II. The introduction of the interaction term between urbanisation
and human capital will help to identify some of the new
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dimensions of urban sustainability. This will expose the
importance of human capital development in enhancing
environmental quality as the country seeks to attain the
Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
III. This study applies robust econometric techniques, including the
Bayer and Hanck (BH) (2013) combined cointegration test and
the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test approach.
These econometric procedures accommodate time-series issues,
account for structural breaks and produce reliable results
(Ahmed et al. 2020a).
Quote 5 lines about the misuse of natural resources
"Activities such as mining, bush burning and deforestation have adverse effects on biodiversity as well as other components that support human existence."
"The excessive exploration of natural resources could impact the ecological footprint."
"Resources such as coal and oil decline environmental quality."
"The link between natural resources consumption/exploration and economic growth cannot be overemphasized."
"To curb environmental degradation, sustainable management practice is required for resources to regenerate."