Energy Poverty, Climate Change and Economic Growth

Abstract

The study objectives were to determine the short and long-run effects of energy poverty and climate change on economic growth and to theoretically describe the driving factors of household energy poverty status using the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) dataset, 2018. The Autoregressive Distributed Lagged (ARDL) model was used to estimate variables based on data from 1980 to 2018. The results indicate that energy poverty has a negative or inverse relationship with the GDP growth; energy imports contribute an average of ten percent to the value of the GDP growth. Traditional and dangerous forms of energy use are predominant in Nigerian households. This poses a threat not only to the environment but also to the health of the public. An awareness-raising campaign on using safe and environmentally friendly energy sources should be a priority in Nigeria. Likewise, energy poverty reduction interventions, probably in the form of promotion of cheap and efficient clean energy technologies in the rural sector and the northern region (most especially Northeast), should be executed to enable the households to exit the energy poverty trap. Income smoothing policy measures probably in the form of poverty reduction and safety-net programs should be directed towards the low-income earners in the country in order to ease their level of poverty, of which energy poverty is an important segment.