Globalization, Green Finance and Sustainable Development in Nigeria

The United Nations, General Assembly, in September 2015 adopted a 17-point Sustainable DevelopmentGoals (SDG), tagged the 2030 Agenda. The attainment of the SDG is, however, dependent on variouseconomic, social and political factors part of which are globalization and finance. This study examined thecontributions of globalization and green finance to the attainment of the SDG from two perspectives, namely,environmental (CO2 emission) and social (life expectancy) from 2012 to 2022.The study employed the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) technique to determine the effect of threeglobalization (trade openness, net foreign direct investment and net foreign portfolio investment) and threegreen finance (green bonds, renewable energy investment and credit to agriculture) variables and the GrossDomestic Product (control variable) on CO2 emission and life expectancy.Findings from the study revealed that among the globalization variables, none have a significant effect onCO2 emission while one of them, net foreign portfolio investment does (coefficient = 0.000135; p =0.0002<0.05 level of significance - LOS). Two green finance variables, green bonds and renewable energyinvestment have reducing and significant effect on CO2 emission (coefficient = -0.000189, p = 0.0000<0.05LOS and coefficient = -0.00000197, p = 0.0000<0.05 LOS respectively). Only one green finance variable,credit to agricultural sector had a positive and significant effect on life expectancy (coefficient = -0.0000197,p = 0.00327 LOS).Based on these findings, this study recommends that authorities should identify globalization variablessignificantly reduce CO2 emissions and prioritize policies on them, there should be policy diversificationapproaches that include both globalization and non-globalization strategies for a more comprehensive plan toreduce CO2 emissions, encouragement of increased public and private sector investments in renewable energyprojects and gre