An empirical insight into the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis in the SADC region

Climate change has resulted in global warming (CO 2 ) extremes, leading to academic debates on how climate change is impacting economic growth. Additionally, how do regulatory environments address climate change issues from a developing country perspective? The novelty of the study stems from a contribution to the stock of empirical evidence on the SADC region (1990–2023), employing panel data and a robust econometric strategy that accounts for cross-sectional dependence, slope heterogeneity, and non-stationarity. The analysis utilizes the CS-ARDL and CCEMG estimators on the impact of climate change on economic growth in the short-term and long-term. The findings provide partial support for the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. Although GDP and its squared term were not statistically significant across models, the expected inverted U-shaped relationship emerged in some specifications, indicating that environmental degradation initially increases with economic growth but may decline at higher income levels.