<p>Low-income economies face distinct decarbonization challenges shaped by governance, infrastructure, and development imperatives. Chad’s emissions profile remains small in absolute terms yet is poised to grow alongside economic expansion and electrification. We assess key drivers of CO₂ emissions to inform context-appropriate mitigation pathways. We assembled a panel of annual indicators (2000–2024) spanning political instability, GDP, digitalization, and renewable energy penetration. Using stationary-transformed series, we estimated elasticities via robust OLS with Newey-West standard errors and validated results through ARDL bounds testing and dynamic OLS. Model adequacy was examined using residual diagnostics, out-of-sample cross-validation, and sensitivity analyses to alternative lags and subperiods. GDP exhibits a strong positive elasticity with emissions, indicating scale effects dominate at current development levels. PI is positively associated with CO₂, consistent with investment volatility, weaker regulatory enforcement, and reliance on diesel-based self-generation. DIG shows a negative association with emissions after controlling for GDP, suggesting efficiency and dematerialization effects outweigh rebound at present penetration levels. RE share is negatively associated with emissions, with effects strongest post-2013, reflecting nascent but growing solar adoption. In Chad, near-term emissions are primarily driven by economic scale and governance constraints, while digitalization and renewables act as mitigating forces. Policy priorities include stabilizing governance to reduce diesel reliance, accelerating distributed solar and mini-grids, and leveraging digital public infrastructure to improve efficiency. Targeted finance and risk guarantees can de-risk clean energy deployment. These findings support a development-first decarbonization strategy coupling reliability gains with low-carbon expansion to avoid future emissions lock-in.</p>