Population growth and environmental degradation in Nigeria: A comparative analysis of Carbon dioxide emissions and ecological footprint

This study examines the effect of population growth on environmental degradation in Nigeria from 1980 to 2019, using two environmental indicators. The Auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique is employed in estimating short and long run dynamics of the variables. Similarly, the Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS) method is used as robustness check for estimated results. Short run ARDL results are consistent for both EFP and CO2 emissions with regards to population growth. However, population growth affects only EFP in the long run. DOLS results are in tandem with long run ARDL results for EFP and CO2 emissions. Energy consumption and gross fixed capital formation have reducing effect on EFP in the short run. In the long run, energy consumption is seen to increase CO2 emissions, while gross domestic product per capita has an increasing effect on ecological footprint. The study recommends that adequate population control measures should put in place by government and a proper sensitization should be done on the ills of environmental degradation.