ACADEMIA Letters IMPACT OF COVID 19 LOCKDOWN ON THE ENVIRONMENT: A CASE STUDY OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FROM VEHICLES IN NIGERIA Richard Mshelia Introduction Anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is the leading cause of the warming of the globe and the accelerated changes in the earth’s climate. Globally, vehicles are responsible for the emission of 23% of all GHGs, in developing countries where old vehicles with poor emission reduction devices are still very much in use, this makes the quota contributed by vehicles much higher. Taking Nigeria as an example, vehicles are responsible for 35% of the total GHG emissions of the country (Mshelia, Jibatswen, Babarinde, & Yusuf, 2021). The Covid 19 pandemic rattled nations and devastated their economies, in its early days the rest of the world watched with horror as hospitals in China and soon after Italy were overwhelmed by patients who had been infected by the fast-spreading noble virus. There was a scramble to restrict international and local travels while also imposing lockdown so as to tame the spread of disease in countries around the world. The president of the federal republic of Nigeria announced the frst phase of full lockdown to take efect from the 30th of March, 2020. The full lockdown was also extended for another two weeks after its expiration. Most states in the country were also under full lockdown for that period. The periods for the lockdown phases were thus: 35 days for the total lockdown (March 30 – May 3, 2020), 73 days for the gradual easing up of lockdown (May 5 – July 15, 2020) (Ibrahim, Ajide, & Olatunde Julius, 2020). Academia Letters, July 2021 Corresponding Author: Richard Mshelia, rbmshelia@gmail.com Citation: Mshelia, R. (2021). IMPACT OF COVID 19 LOCKDOWN ON THE ENVIRONMENT: A CASE STUDY OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FROM VEHICLES IN NIGERIA. Academia Letters, Article 2174. 1 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0