The asymmetric impact of fossil fuel and renewable energy consumption on life expectancy in Nigeria

Abstract The life expectancy rate is an essential yardstick for measuring people's well–being. The healthier the population, the better the economic rate of productivity. Not many studies have investigated the asymmetric link between energy use and life expectancy. Thus, this paper addresses the gap by evaluating the impact of fossil fuel (FFEC) and renewable energy consumption (RNEW) on life expectancy (LEXP) in Nigeria from 1965–2019 using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Non‐linear ARDL methods. The bounds test to cointegration confirmed the presence of long‐run association. According to the findings of the ARDL technique, FFEC and RNEW improve LEXP in the long and short‐run. In addition, the NARDL result confirms that a positive shock in FFEC and RNEW improves LEXP in the long and short‐run. This study suggests that cleaner technologies should be applied to fossil fuel sources, while the importance and use of RNEW sources should be continually promoted.