Fossil Energy Consumption, Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Adult Mortality Rate in Nigeria

Abstract

The health implications of fossil energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions remain a global concern. This study examines the effect of fossil energy consumption and CO2 emissions on adult mortality rate in Nigeria. The study relies on the Health Production Function and utilises the Autoregressive Distributed Lag technique to analyse time series data from 1980 to 2019. The results of the estimated model show that fossil energy consumption reduces adult mortality rates in the short run, while co2 emissions increase adult mortality rates both in the short and long run. In addition, government health expenditure follows an inverted U-shape relationship in explaining adult mortality while foreign direct investment has a U-shape relationship with adult mortality in Nigeria. Trade openness and monetary policy are insignificant in the short and long run. It is recommended that the government should substitute clean energy for fossil fuel energy to improve the quality of life, strengthen CO2 emissions tax and ensure health funds are used for the improvement of healthcare service delivery in Nigeria.

Keywords

• adult mortality rate
• CO2 emissions
• fossil energy consumption
• Nigeria