Environmental Hazards and Life Expectancy in Africa: Evidence From GARCH Model

This study investigates the extent to which environmental hazards affect the life expectancy in Africa using Nigeria time series data spanning from 1960 to 2017. The study adopted generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model in estimating the total number of 58 (years) observations to ensure robustness in the estimation results. The estimation results show that environmental hazards in terms of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission from solid fuel consumption reduce life expectancy (LEX) by 1 month and 3 weeks with a statistically significant result. Also, income, as proxied by GDP, extends LEX by 1 year 6 months with statistically insignificant result, while population growth (POPG) equally extends LEX by 5 years 5 months due to increase in human resource/manpower which enhances agricultural productivity in Africa. Based on the empirical findings, there is a need for the African Union (AU) to adopt a policy regulating the excessive CO₂ emission from solid fuel consumption to ameliorate the negative consequences it exerts on the lifespan of the African population. Also among other policy recommendations, the economies in Africa should increase budgetary allocations to science and technology sector to drift the economies from solid fuel consumption to more robust electricity/digital driven technology and hybrid-energy efficient mechanisms.