CLIMATE CHANGE AND NANO MICRO, SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE BUSINESS DISRUPTIONS IN THE SOUTH EAST, NIGERIA

Abstract

In the last one and half decades, the global scourge has attracted world leaders’ attention, demonstrated in ambitious global world climate summits referred to as Conference of Parties (COP), the last which was held in Egypt this year 2023. Within the framework of anthropogenic global warming theory, this study therefore, seeks to investigate the impact of climate change on Nano Micro, Small and Medium Scale (NMSMEs) business disruptions in the South East, Nigeria. The study was guided by three research questions and hypotheses. The study adopted the survey design. It relied on primary and secondary data, and multiple stage sampling technique was used to select the sample population. The data collected were presented in frequency table and simple percentage. Correlations Coefficient and Simple Regression Analysis statistical technique were used with the aid of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS Version 20.0) to test the research hypotheses. The study adopts a descriptive research method in which 150 respondents were administered with well-structured questionnaire designed in line with Lickert five point scales. The findings include among other things that climate change has caused untold disruptions in businesses especially in the Nano, Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (NMSMEs) subsector of the Nigerian economy and indeed the South East in particular as attested by over 90% of respondents in this survey. The nature of these disruptions include, submergence by floods and gulley erosions of businesses especially farmlands, factories, markets and related business sites and environments with its attendant losses cash, facilities, equipment, schedules and so on running into billions of naira. These devastations have also exacerbated the already high unemployment rate and lowered other indices of the economy. The paper concludes that ambitious mitigation and adaptation measures are key activities to be pursued vigorously across the world in order to scale up the global green economy policy to return the global environment to sustainability. The paper recommends the immediate implementation of the global green economy policy which targets the drastic reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere as a major positive step in mitigating these business disruptions and charting a new course towards global prosperity.