Empirical Evaluation of the Long-Run Effects of Climate Change on Human Health

The importance of this study lies in the pressing need to provide emphatic insight into the relationship that exist among climate change, human health and economic growth in Nigeria, in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). It was established that Nigeria’s macroeconomic environment has not been able to adequately mobilise growth. Given the precarious effect of climate change on human health (Ahern et al., 2006), Nigeria may not stand any good chance of growth and development considering the consequences earlier stated, coupled with the poor macroeconomic environment. Owing to these adverse consequences of global climate change, induced by increase in temperature, resulting in shortage of water supply, crop failure and displacement of people, Nigeria has been classified among the most vulnerable to climate change because of her dependence on the environment for livelihood. It was reported that 40 per cent of the world’s agricultural land is seriously degraded by poor farming practices, deforestation, and the effects of climate which results in about 300 000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year. It was also projected that by 2030 the number of deaths would be 500 000, with 310 million people suffering health consequences related to temperature rise, 20 million falling into poverty and 75 million being displaced (GHF, 2009). Ipso facto, it becomes expedient to create awareness in order to reduce the vulnerability of the Nigerian economy to climate change and its consequences, so as to engender faster and significant growth and development. Therefore, this empirical study is postulated upon the need for redirection and repositioning of the country in order to reduce the impact of climate change on human health in Nigeria and consequently on economic growth via improved economic policies. Thus, this study examined the extent to which carbon dioxide emissions explained variation in climate change in Nigeria. It also evaluated the long-run effect of climate change on human health, as well determined the relationship among climate change, human health and growth in Nigeria. All these empirical analyses would help in the formulation of health and environmental policies that would put the nation on the path of sustained growth and also increase the frontier of knowledge in this field, as econometrically analysed studies give high precision results, resulting in excellent policy. this study explicitly brought to light the peculiarities of the Nigerian economy with respect to climate change, since the study is country specific. The study examined the trend of climate change, human health and economic growth in Nigeria and analysed the extent to which carbon dioxide emissions explained variation in climate change in Nigeria. It also evaluated the long-run effect of climate change on human health. These are with a view to determining the dynamic relationship among climate change, human health and economic growth in Nigeria. The study made use of secondary data that were sourced from different publications and data centres. Data on real Gross Domestic Product, life expectancy, local carbon dioxide emissions, urbanization and food were sourced from the Work Development Indicators of the world bank while data on temperature were sourced from Nigeria Meteorological Agency and Earth Policy Institute. Data on carbon dioxide were sourced from carbon dioxide information analysis centre. Data on human capital spending and local rainfall were sourced from the statistical bulletin of Central Bank of Nigeria and abstract of statistics of National Bureau of statistics, Nigeria. Data were analysed using descriptive and Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model. Research results showed that there is a long-run relationship between human health and global climate change and its short-run adjustment coefficient—the error correction coefficient of 0.5 percent is negative and significant, suggesting that the speed of adjustment of human health to its long-run equilibrium is abysmally slow, as only 0.5 percent disequilibrium is corrected every year by human health. This means it will take a whole lot of 200 years before convergence to equilibrium can be achieved