Effectiveness of domestic climate action: interplay of legal enforcement, regulatory adequacy and international diplomacy

Abstract

Nigeria has assembled, within a short period, a substantial architecture of climate law and policy, including the Climate Change Act 2021, the National Climate Change Policy and the establishment of the National Council on Climate Change. Whether that architecture translates into effective domestic climate action depends less on the existence of instruments than on whether they are enforceable, whether their regulatory content is adequate to the task, and whether the institutions administering them are connected to the international processes that shape climate governance. This study examined the effects of the enforceability of the legal framework and the adequacy of the regulatory framework on the effectiveness of climate action, and the effect of the Council’s engagement in international climate diplomacy on the effectiveness of domestic climate policies. A survey research design was adopted. The sample comprised 385 respondents drawn from the National Council on Climate Change and associated Ministries, Departments and Agencies, including the Federal Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Ministry of Power and the Energy Commission of Nigeria. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire measured on five point scales and subjected to pilot testing. The measurement model satisfied conventional thresholds, with all standardised loadings above 0.70, average variance extracted between 0.645 and 0.728, and composite reliability between 0.900 and 0.930. Discriminant validity was established by the Fornell and Larcker criterion. Ordinary least squares regression showed that enforceability of the legal framework has a significant positive effect on the effectiveness of climate action (β = 0.628, p < 0.01), as does adequacy of the regulatory framework (β = 0.297, p < 0.01). Engagement in international climate diplomacy has a significant positive effect on the effectiveness of domestic climate policies (β = 0.763, p < 0.01). Diagnostic tests found no evidence of heteroskedasticity or functional form misspecification. That enforcement outweighs regulatory adequacy by more than two to one is the central finding, and it indicates that Nigeria’s binding constraint lies in implementation capacity rather than in the content of its instruments. The study recommends that government and regulatory authorities prioritise enforcement capability, inter-agency coordination and sustained international engagement over further legislative elaboration.