Carbon emissions, climate change, and Nigeria's agricultural productivity

Abstract

This paper examined the impact of climate change through the carbon emissions channel on agricultural productivity in Nigeria. It adopted the transposed second-generation environmental Kuznets curve model, which defined growth (agricultural productivity) as a function of climate change. Data from world development indicators between 1960 and 2019 were utilized to examine the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity. The paper employed the bound test (ARDL) method. The result showed the existence of a long-run relationship between carbon emissions (proxy by CO₂ emissions and CO₂ intensity) and agricultural productivity (proxy by Agric.GDP, crop production index, and food production index) in Nigeria. The speed of adjustments is between 34% and 80%. Thus, a change in CO₂ emissions and intensity affects Agric.GDP differently, but CO₂ emissions and intensity negatively impacted crop and food production in Nigeria. The result implies that carbon emissions and carbon intensity cause decline and generates a dampening threat to Nigeria’s agricultural productivity through physical risk channels. By extension, the study concludes that carbon emission causes climate vulnerability that affects agricultural yields, production, and productivity. Carbon emissions results in low agricultural productivity which in turn disrupt food security as well as distort the poverty reduction strategy in the country. This study, therefore, recommends an equitable implementation of carbon pricing, adoption of mitigation policies, promotion of effective and efficient environmental laws, and the implementation of an appropriate abatement policy that jointly optimizes environmental stability and growth targets of the sustainable development goals.