Dynamics of climate change, human health and economic growth: evidence from Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines the dynamic relationship between climate change, human health and economic growth from 1960 to 2015 employing the structural VAR approach. Restrictions are imposed according to climate modified Mankiw-Romer-Weil theory. The result of the impulse response function reveals that economic growth, climate change and human health are strong predictors of themselves over a long period in both global and local climate models. However, global climate predicts human health and economic growth better than local climate. Variance decomposition shows that approximately 0.3% and 62.9% of the variance in human health are accounted for by economic growth and global climate shocks respectively, compared to 6.7% for local climate shocks. Also, 52.9% variance in local climate in Nigeria is accounted for by economic growth shocks, and only 3.0% and 0.3% variance in local and global climate change are accounted for by human health, respectively. This study concludes that climate change shocks are associated with poor human health status in Nigeria while economic growth shocks have a mild effect on human health status and these reduce man hours, labour productivity and economic growth. It is therefore necessary to simultaneously implement both  mitigation and country-specific adaptation strategies as well as monitor the outcomes of the strategies.

Keywords: Climate change dynamics, Economic growth, Human health, Structural restrictions