Environmental Degradation In Nigeria Research Articles

FISCAL POLICY ON ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN NIGERIA: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

In recent times, the challenges of government policy formulation to achieve desired objectives and maintaining a sustainable environment without inhibiting human well-being is still an issue of debate among scholars in the literature. Many factors have been identified as culpable of environmental humiliation, but the government policy as a factor is more often than not ignored. However, the government formulates policies most especially fiscal policy that involve the collection of revenue through taxation and expenditure on infrastructural facilities, industrialization, mechanization, urbanization, etc to achieve sustained economic growth without recur to the effect of the policy on ecological footprint and its effects on human well-being in the society. Thus, this study uses the ARDL econometric approach on annual time series data extending from 1981 to 2022 to investigate the effect of fiscal policy on the ecological footprint in Nigeria. The variables used in the study include ecological footprint proxied by comprehensive measures of environmental degradation (dependent variable), government tax revenue and expenditure (independent variable), population, and technological changes proxied by industrial activities are the control variables. The study's findings indicate that fiscal policy variables are both positively and negatively related to ecological footprint and are statically significant. Specifically, government tax revenue reduces ecological footprint while government expenditure escalates the environmental degradation in Nigeria during the period under review and they are all significant statistically at 1% and 5% respectively. Considering these results, the research concludes that fiscal policy formulation has a noteworthy effect in determining changes in the ecological footprint in Nigeria. Given the effect of tax and government spending policy on infrastructure and industrialization, the government should formulate policies that are environmentally friendly and increase budgetary allocation to control and manage environmental challenges that inhabit the well-being of the citizens. By implication, the economic growth policy which invariably leads to ecological footprint challenges should be properly looked at to reduce ecological footprint in Nigeria.

The Concept of Environmental Justice in the Nigeria Legal System

Environmental justice is a progressively advancing subject, social movement and practice, which requires fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all humans, regardless of sex, age, class, income, race, colour or nationality. Environmental Justice is geared towards the development, management, implementation and enforcement of plans, policies, laws and regulatory practices, towards the protection and management of the environment in the course of socio-economic development programmes, including projects. It also requires equitable distribution of benefits and thus indiscriminate exposure of all to environmental good and harm. It is an advancing social movement that advocates a healthy and eco-balanced environment, towards human’s wellbeing, sustainable communities and all-embracing sustainable development in the overall interest of society within the Planet (Mother Earth). The aim of the study is to examine the effectiveness of environmental Justice in Nigeria, with the view to ascertain if justice is actually done to victims of environmental degradation in Nigeria. The study found that there is need for courts to give wider interpretation to existing relevant fundamental rights to secure a healthy environment. Flowing from the above finding, the study recommends that Section 20 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should be amended to recognize the environment as legal personality with the citizens as its trustees. The study has shown that there should be an interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, policymakers, activist and civil society organization, who will work on environmental justice issues in Nigeria in fostering dialogue, sharing best practices and mobilizing collective actions, thereby enabling victims of environmental hazards get justice they deserve.

Testing the Efficacy of Sustainable Development for the Quality of Governance and Environmental Degradation in Nigeria

Testing the Efficacy of Sustainable Development for the Quality of Governance and Environmental Degradation in Nigeria

Dynamic effects of energy consumption, economic growth, international trade and urbanization on environmental degradation in Nigeria

MotivationA crucial but difficult goal for governments and policymakers in Nigeria in recent years has been the sustainability of economic growth. This goal must be accomplished by regulating or lowering greenhouse gas emissions, which calls for switching to a low- or zero-carbon production system. The lack of in-depth empirical studies on the environmental impact of socioeconomic variables on Nigeria and a number of unresolved issues from earlier research are what led to the current study. ObjectiveThis study fills an important empirical gap by investigating the existence of an Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis and the long and short-run dynamic impact of socioeconomic variables on ecological sustainability in Nigeria. Data and methodAnnual time series data covering the period 1980 to 2020 and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag technique in the presence of structural breaks were adopted for this study. ResultsThe empirical findings support the existence of environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for Nigeria in the long and short run. Energy consumption and total import exacerbates environmental deterioration in the long and short run, whereas total export improves environmental quality in the long and short run. Financial development, which contributed to a conspicuous decrease in the level of environmental destruction in the long run, escalated it in the short run. In contrast, urbanization caused a significant increase in environmental damage in the long run but motivated a decrease in biodiversity loss in the short run. ImplicationsThe government, policymakers, and all energy stakeholders should take additional measures to ensure the implementation and diversification of energy sources to accommodate more renewable energy sources that emit less carbon in order to promote efficiency in Nigeria's production processes and lower carbon emissions. In order to promote the production and trade of environmentally friendly goods, they should also revise and strengthen environmental policies. With affordable, dependable, and sustainable energy use for higher productivity and inclusive growth, Nigeria will be able to achieve its long-term development goals of good health and wellbeing.

Natural resource rent, financial globalization, and environmental degradation: Evidence from a resource rich country

This paper examines the role of financial globalization and natural resource rents on carbon emissions in the case of Nigeria from 1970 to 2020 using Breitung-Candelin Spectral Granger-causality and wavelet coherence analysis. The spectral analysis decomposes variability in a time series into its periodic components, which is preferable for series that are short-spanned, nonlinear, or are characterized by seasonal and economic episodes, while the wavelet coherence analysis could produce localized decompositions both in time and frequency domains. Using these techniques, we find a one-way causal effect running from financial globalization and natural resource rents to carbon emissions within the specified scale and time. Financial globalization and natural resource rents are useful for predicting environmental degradation in Nigeria. Thus, policymakers should factor in financial globalization and natural resource rent when formulating environmental policies to mitigate climate change effect for the immediate and future generations. Financial penetration should be channeled toward green investment. The deposit money banks should provide and prioritize credit only to firms and individuals that consider investing in modern and clean technologies, while the policy on exploration and exploitation of natural resources should review to attract foreign investors that would improve the existing technologies or bring in energy-efficient and energy-saving ones.

Winning the Environmental Sustainability Crusade: Do Agricultural Development and Public Debt Mitigate Environmental Pollution in Nigeria?

Although the literature has largely concentrated on a variety of factors that contribute to environmental pollution in Nigeria. It fails to recognize the influence of debt and agricultural development on the environment. Additionally, prior studies have employed CO2 emission to capture environmental degradation in their analyses. This study’s purpose address the aforementioned gaps by analyzing the implications of public debt, and agricultural development on environmental degradation in Nigeria utilizing ecological footprint (a broad measure of pollution). The dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) method was used in this study to assess the influence of public debt and agricultural development on environmental pollution in Nigeria. The authors utilized time series data between 1981 and 2021. The results showed that population, agricultural development, public debt (domestic and external debt) and financial development reduce environmental pollution in Nigeria thereby promoting environmental sustainability while trade openness and energy consumption escalate environmental pollution though the effect of the latter was insignificant. The study made some policy suggestions to rejig the nation’s environment

Asymmetric Effect of Remittances on Environmental Degradation in Nigeria

Nigeria has become one of the sub-Saharan Africa’s largest remittance recipients. Despite the economic benefits of remittances, there is rising concern about their impact on environmental degradation. The NARDL approach was used to analyze time-series data from 1980 to 2018, to determine the impact of remittances increases and decreases on environmental degradation in Nigeria. The cointegration results show that remittances and environmental degradation have a long-run relationship. The study found that remittances is asymmetrically connected to ecological footprint (EFP) as a measure of environmental degradation both in the long run and short run whereas it is asymmetrically connected with CO2as a measure of environmental degradation in the long run only. The study also found that remittances increase contributes to environmental degradation in Nigeria in the long run.

Analysis of Environmental Degradation and Its Determinants in Nigeria: New Evidence from ARDL and Causality Approaches

This paper extends the previous studies to re-examine the functional relations and causal links between environmental degradation and its possible determinants in Nigeria, covering 1977 to 2015. With the aid of ARDL model estimation, the study found a positive relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation (measured by carbon emission). A positive relation was also established between energy consumption and carbon emission. Similarly, this study reported a positive relationship between transport services in the import and export sectors and carbon emission. Through the Granger causality test, the study established a unidirectional causality running from carbon emission to economic growth. Similarly, there was a unidirectional causality running from economic growth to transport services in the export sector. Based on these findings, there is an increasing need for the authorities to regulate economic activities that directly and indirectly contribute to systematic environmental degradation in Nigeria.

The sheep’s revolution: Paradox of democratic consolidation and environmental regulations in post-transition Nigeria

Over the last 20 years of uninterrupted democratic dispensation in Nigeria, the military regime has left the post-transition era with certain characteristics such as a low level of participation away from the center. While many have blamed the central authorities for the constantly increasing environmental threats, this study argues that the dwindling impact of civil society organizations (CSOs) on environmental regulation policies remains the missing link between policy formulation and implementation in Nigeria. This paper investigated the involvement of environmental CSOs within our democratic space, reflecting on the level of compliance with environmental regulation laws and the implications of this for environmental sustainability. This paper adopts both primary and secondary sources of information, and data were analyzed using a descriptive survey. The study reveals that the Nigerian government sees the CSOs as partners in ensuring environmental sustainability rather than deploying the CSOs as delivery agents to enforce environmental regulations and sustainability within the extractive and non-extractive contexts. This study concludes that, to tackle environmental degradation in Nigeria, much attention should be placed on environmental securitization advocacies through independent and effective environmental CSOs.

Resistance and Revolutionary Aesthetics in Nnimmo Bassey’s Niger Delta Poetry

The criticism of Niger Delta eco-conscious poetry continues to generate new insights about the plight of the region, but with greater attention to the threnodic sensibility of the poets and the degradation of the environment. This article engages with two eco-conscious collections of Nnimmo Bassey, one of the prominent voices in the campaign against environmental degradation in Nigeria, especially the Niger Delta region of the country. With insights from Marxist theory, selected eco-poems from We Thought It Was Oil but It Was Blood (2002) and I Will Not Dance to Your Beat (2011) are closely read to demonstrate how the poet’s violent tone and resistance thematic inclination imbue the poems with revolutionary temper.

Combating Environmental Degradation in Nigeria through the Recognition of the Rights of Nature

Environmental degradation has increasingly plagued the human and natural environment especially since the discovery of petroleum in Nigeria. The right to a clean and healthy environment although provided for in the Constitution has been seen to be non-justiciable except by alternative pathways such as in reference to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR) or in a foreign court. It is also a fact that environmental pollution cases have been lost due to technicalities. This has emboldened some petroleum sector operators to continue in bad environmental practices. Hence the need for alternative ways to combat environmental degradation from bad environmental practices such as the recognition of the rights of nature.

Economic growth and environmental degradation in developing world: Evidence from Nigeria (1981–2019)

This study analyses the relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation in Nigeria (1981–2019). It also examines the effect of industrialization and energy consumption on the environmental quality in the nation. The study utilizes mainly a secondary data; the unit root test shows that carbon emission is stationary at level, while economic growth, industrialization and energy consumption achieve stationary at first difference. Consequently, the Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, results reveal that economic growth and energy consumption have positive relationship with environmental degradation, while the industrialization has negative or inverse relationship with it. Therefore, the study recommends that there should be adoption of sink enhancement strategy which involves filtering out greenhouse gases.

Empirical Analysis of the Environmental Kuznets Curve for Co2 Emissions in Nigeria: The Role of Industrialization and Urbanization

The proposed inverted U-type relationship between environmental degradation and per capita income under EKC hypothesis has been examined in this paper for Nigeria over the period 1970-2019. Using the ARDL bounds testing approach to cointegration and ECM (OLS Approach), the EKC hypothesis does not seem to hold both in short-run and long-run. The estimated coefficients of the long-run relationship shows that LOGCO2(-1) is the only statistically significant variable explaining environmental degradation while the short run results indicate that D(LOGCO2(-1)) is the most significant variable in explaining environmental degradation in Nigeria followed by D(LOGIND(-1)).

The symmetrical and asymmetrical effects of foreign direct investment and financial development on carbon emission: evidence from Nigeria

This study aimed at investigating the symmetric and asymmetric effects of financial development, foreign direct investment (FDI), energy consumption, and economic growth on carbon emissions (CO2) towards environmental sustainability in Nigeria. A yearly data spanning from 1981 to 2016 was utilized with linear ARDL and non-linear ARDL techniques. The findings from the estimations show that FDI, and energy consumption have a long-run linear relationship with CO2 in Nigeria. In addition, FDI has a linear relationship with CO2 in the short-run. Interestingly, the positive and negative shocks in FDI have a significant long-run relationship with CO2, while only positive shock in financial development has a long-run relationship with CO2. The asymmetric effect in the short-run from the estimation shows that the positive and negative shocks in both financial development and FDI have a short-run relationship with CO2. Thus, this study argues for the integration of nationwide social awareness programs in the environmental policies and the implementation of financial credit policy that will address environmental degradation in Nigeria.

Testing the nexus between renewable energy consumption and environmental quality in Nigeria: The role of broad‐based financial development

AbstractThis study investigates the nexus between renewable energy consumption and environmental quality in Nigeria, accounting for the role of financial development, and re‐examines the validity of the environmental Kuznet curve (EKC) hypothesis for Nigeria covering the period 1990 to 2016. To cover financial development more adequately, the current study uses the broad‐based financial development index constructed by the International Monetary Fund. The study employs second generation econometric approaches of Lee and Strazicich, and Bayer and Hanck combined cointegration tests to check for stationarity and cointegration among the variables, and then applies autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and vector error correction model (VECM) Granger causality tests to explore the effect and causal relationship respectively. The results divulge that renewable energy consumption improves environmental quality, while financial development hurts the environment. Further, the results validate an inverted U‐shaped association between economic growth and environmental degradation in Nigeria. The VECM Granger causality results indicate a long‐run effect of the independent variables on CO2 emission, while the short‐run causality reveals a mixture of unidirectional and bidirectional causality among the variables. This study therefore recommends that policy makers consider the important roles of renewable energy and financial development in reforming energy policies to achieve environmental sustainability.

Environmental Liability Estimates and Equity Value of Oil Firms in Nigeria

The purpose of this study is to examine whether decommissioning and environmental restoration estimates affect equity valuation of oil firms in Nigeria. The study also examined whether changes in these environmental liability estimates are value relevant in Nigeria. The study analysed data from four listed oil firms that estimated and reported decommissioning liabilities in their annual reports from 2012 to 2018, using regression analysis technique. Findings indicate that investors in Nigeria’s oil and gas firms negatively value environmental liability estimates. This finding is possibly because Nigerian investors view these estimates as representing the extent to which the firm will damage the environment. Given the adverse effect of environmental degradation in Nigeria, investors are wary of any indication of environmental violation. However, changes in decommissioning and restoration estimates are not associated with variations in the market value of oil firms in Nigeria, probably due to lack of investors’ sophistication in appreciating the basis for these changes. Further, some listed oil firms did not provide for environmental liability in their annual reports for the seven years examined, possibly because there is no legal obligation to restore the environment. These findings should motivate environmental regulators in Nigeria to consider laws that will expressly mandate environmental restoration for polluting firms in the country. With such legal requirement, accounting regulators could ensure that oil firms (with facilities that affect the environment) recognise provision for environmental liabilities in their financial statements.

Reinvestigating the Determinants of Environmental Degradation in Nigeria

This study aims to reinvestigate the impact of economic growth in relation with trade openness, financial development, energy consumption and foreign direct investment to overcome the omitted variable problem on environmental degradation in Nigeria for the years from 1971 to 2015. Bounds test results reveal a cointegrating relationship between variables in the long run. Both in the long and short run, economic growth tends to affect CO2 emissions positively. In the long run, energy consumption positively impacts CO2 emissions while CO2 emissions tend to be negatively affected by foreign direct investment. Furthermore, a robust check was performed through the FMOLS and DOLS to establish the long run effect. Moreover, we employed wavelet coherence based causality test which provided stronger supportive evidence to the long-run estimations of this study. The significance of this study stems from the uniqueness that to the best of our knowledge there has been no study combining these variables in addition to the fact that the econometric techniques employed have not been applied in conjunction to the subject for the case of Nigeria.

Reinvestigating the determinants of environmental degradation in Nigeria

Reinvestigating the determinants of environmental degradation in Nigeria

Dynamics of Economic Growth and Environmental Degradation in Nigeria using Vector Auto-Regressive Model

The study examined the interrelationship among economic growth, environmental pollution and human health for Sustainable Development (SD) in Nigeria. This was to contribute to the dynamic debate of how human and economic activities relate and interrelate with environmental pollution in measuring sustainable development in Nigeria. This study further sought to verify the Environmental Kuznet Curve Hypothesis in Nigeria.The study employed the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) to investigate linear and interrelationship mainly among life expectancy at birth, economic growth and environmental pollution in Nigeria from 1970-2015. Since the variables have unit root and revealed that there is at least a cointegrating equation in the model, the VECM become a more appropriate model for the study.The VECM Impulse Response Function (IRF) result indicated that economic growth increased environmental degradation in the long run and environmental degradation on the other way round reduced economic growth in most of the period of the study. The VECM system conditional forecast of 10%, 20% and 26% from 2000 to 2015 periods showed that a 10%, 20%, and 26% reduction forecasts of environmental pollution led to a consistent increased economic growth and life expectancy at birth of the country in the study. This indicated that a reduction in environmental pollution will improve the health of Nigerians and also enhance a sustainable development in the country.The study concluded that environmental degradation reduces economic growth while economic activities in the country increases environmental degradation in the country. From the conditional forecast, the study further concluded that efforts in reducing environmental pollution through policies and better environmental friendly economic activities will improves economic growth for sustainable development in the country.

‘Proceed to your death’: Lakuwa, environmental disaster management, and the culture of oil politics in Nigeria

Since the 1990s, in the riverine areas of Nigeria, the ecological menace of water hyacinth has been turned into an object of politics by various administrations. Among the Ilajes, an oil-rich community in the southwestern part of Nigeria, water hyacinth is considered to be poisonous and an impediment to people’s livelihoods. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the authors explore how an invasive species, known locally as lakuwa – translated as ‘proceed to your death’ – gets inserted into the politics of oil distribution. They argue that, just like oil, water hyacinth presents certain features that enable its conversion from poisonous species to money, and the article particularly explores how the conversion of water hyacinth, an ecological ‘plague’, fits into popular narratives of environmental degradation in Nigeria. The authors argue that the invasive nature of water hyacinth warrants a form of state response that deepens already existing forms of prebendal political interactions between the environment, local political leaders, and their numerous followers.