Carbon Footprint Prognosis in Nigeria’s Key States: A Support Vector Machine-Based Approach

Abstract

The number of motor vehicles in Nigeria is increasing rapidly, and this trend contributes immensely to global warming as a result of the corresponding increase in carbon emissions pumping into the atmosphere. Therefore, the estimation of the carbon footprint produced by motor vehicles in Nigeria is imperative. This study attempts to predict the carbon footprint produced by cars in the Nigerian major states: Lagos, Kano, Rivers, and the FCT. The number of registered private and commercial cars in these states from 2018 to 2022 was obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics. The prediction of the number of cars from 2023 to 2050 was done with the aid of a prediction code developed using the Support Vector Machine algorithm in Matlab programming. The code developed was verified using a regression model. The predicted results showed that Lagos State has the highest number of registered cars, which represents 60.4% and 54.2% in 2030 and 2050, respectively. The percentage increase in registered cars in these states rises from 27.5% between 2023 and 2030 to 47.5% between 2030 and 2050. The total predicted carbon footprint produced by the cars in 2030, 2040, and 2050 was 30.184 MtCO₂e, 42.622 MtCO₂e, and 55.284 MtCO₂e, respectively. This result indicates that the transport sector needs to be given adequate attention by policymakers in order to mitigate and forestall the catastrophic effect of pumping carbon emissions into the atmosphere.