Following the recent global economic downturn, attention has gradually shifted towards emerging economies which have experienced robust growth amidst sluggish growth of the world economy. A significant number of these emerging economies are in Africa. Rising growth in these economies is associated with surging demand for energy to propel the engines of growth, with direct implications on emissions into the atmosphere. Further, these economies are constantly being shaped by series of structural reforms with direct and indirect effects on growth, demand for energy, etc. To this end, this paper examines the causal dynamics among energy use, real GDP and CO2 emissions in the presence of regime shifts in six emerging African economies using the Gregory and Hansen. (1996a). J. Econ. 70, 99-126 threshold cointegration and the Toda and Yamamoto (1995). J. Econometrics. 66, 225-250 Granger causality techniques. Results confirm the presence of regime shift effects in the long run inter-linkages among energy use, real GDP and CO2 emissions in the countries considered, thus indicating that structural changes have both economic and environmental effects. Hence, integration of energy and environmental policies into development plans is imperative towards attaining sustainable growth and development. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.