Determinants of Nigerian Household Carbon Footprint

Abstract

The statement that household carbon footprint accounts for a significant portion of a country’s total carbon footprint is a truism. Hence, reducing this type of carbon footprint will play an important role in ameliorating global carbon footprint and climate change. The study aimed at examining the determinants of Nigerian household carbon footprint. To achieve this, data on household socio-economic and demographic characteristics were obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics 2015 General Household Survey, and household direct carbon footprint was estimated using the Linear Multiplier Factor Method. To analyse the data, a cross section log-linear regression model was built on the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis and the parameters were estimated using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimation technique. The empirical results revealed that the effects of household income, household size, motorisation, literacy ratio and household head gender are positive and significant at 1% level. Although literacy ratio oppose a priori expectation. Male population, polygamy and age of household head are insignificant at 1%, 5% and 10% level respectively. Both age of household head and household income show significant non-linear relationship with household carbon footprint. The study concludes that household income, household size, motorisation and literacy ratio are the quantitative factors that influence the level of Nigerian household carbon footprint. Based on the findings, the researcher recommends policies that will help prevent Nigerian household carbon footprint level from going worse.

Keywords: Environmental Kuznets curve, Carbon footprint, Household, Nigerian