Energy consumption, environmental pollution and economic growth in Nigeria.

Abstract

Nigeria is one of the leading producers and users of fossil fuel in the Africa. Nigeria is well endowed with a variety of fossil energy type, such as crude oil, natural gas and coal. The consumption of fossil fuel in Nigeria has, however, not come without a cost. Even though fossil fuel is an essential input for economic growth, its consumption has contributed significantly in changing the environment in Nigeria. This paper investigates the relationship between energy consumption, environmental pollution and economic growth in Nigeria using autoregressive distributed lag approach to cointegration. The empirical results revealed that
there is a long run relationship between energy consumption, CO2 emissions and GDP. Both in the long run and short run, Energy consumption (FF) has been found to have a significant positive impact on CO2 emissions, meaning that an increase in energy consumption (FF) increases CO2 emissions. On the other hand, energy consumption (FF) shows negative insignificant impact on GDP. It was therefore, suggested that renewable source of energy such as solar and wind could be explored and considered as an alternative source of energy since Nigeria is well endowed with solar energy. This will assist in reducing CO2 emissions and at the same time sustaining long run growth in GDP.