Research Title: Lack of Awareness about Climate Change
For
Final Project Technical Report Writing
Ideas in Action- What can ‘We’ do for our Society
Phase III Submission
Submitted to
Ma’am Sana Iliyas
Submitted by
Hamza Tariq (17-0490)
Usman Shahbaz (17-0457)
Hamza Shakir (16-0504)
December 16, 2020
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Chapter 1
Introduction
Pakistan is one of the country’s most vulnerable to climate change. A basic understanding of
public perception on vulnerability, attitude, and the risk in relation to climate change will provide
direction for government policy and the development of community-based guidelines. The likely
effect of climate change on common residents of Pakistan with comparison to the world is
expected to be terribly high considering Pakistan’s low adaptive capacity due to certain factors
such as a high poverty rate, limited financial resources, and low literacy rate. World Economic
Forum has perceived climate change as the most serious threat facing society [1]. But the biggest
concern for developing countries like Pakistan is the recognition of climate change as an issue.
The objective of this study was to collect data on peoples’ knowledge and perception of climate
change to help analyze the level of awareness. The result of this survey will provide information
level ad public perception of climate change, specifying the well-known topics and those with a
lack of knowledge. Furthermore, the survey will identify the key incentives for and challenges to
environmental and climate-conscious behavior.
Chapter 2
Literature Review
Introduction
Researchers have proposed many theories for increasing climate change. Although the
literature covers a wide variety of such theories, this review will focus on the lack of awareness
about climate change and how it is a significant barrier to climate change adaptation in
developing countries. As the climate continues to change, millions of people face greater
challenges in terms of extreme events, food security, migration, water security, cultural
identity, and other related risks.
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Body
Reason behind the lack of awareness
According to research humans are naturally inclined to disregard issues that are not directly
present in their life [2]. There are also people who are aware of these crises but do not believe
it presents a real problem. Some people may not realize the magnitude of the problem because
they have not directly witnessed its effect. This is why media is an important factor affecting
environmental/climate change awareness however, currently; its role has been very negative as
it creates misinformation about climate change that leads to less awareness of the issue. Nunn
found in his study that the media focused on disastrous situations and extreme future climatic
predictions of what might happen [3]. This does not raise climate change awareness but rather
created misunderstanding about climate change.
Previous Surveys
Many previous pieces of research have shown that people don’t consider climate change as a
real threat. A research was conducted in Lahore where 150 local officials were selected for a
detailed survey [4]. Almost half of the respondents (53%) were not aware of the phenomenon
of climate change meaning that only 71 out of 150 respondents were aware of climate change
phenomena. Almost half of the local officials who claimed to be aware of climate change knew
nothing beyond the phrase climate change. It shows a very high level of climate ignorance. This
ignorance however is not restricted to Pakistan only. A recent survey conducted by Rocky in
America revealed that more than half of Americans lack awareness on the issue of climate
change [5]. The survey polled 1500 American adults, ranging from ages 18 to 55+. When the
responders were asked if global warming will have deleterious effects in their own lifetime, 34%
of respondents disagreed with 7% claiming that global warming was a ‘hoax’ outright. While
researchers agree about the lack of awareness they disagree about the reasons behind it.
Government role
Different factors are involved in climate change in Pakistan such as, excessive release of
greenhouse gases, industrial wastes, air pollution, increased number of transportation,
expansion of cities to the rural areas moreover; the previous studies show that no efficient
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stapes are taken to avoid the challenges against the climate change [6]. With so little attention
given to threat individual actions become more important.
Individual action
Dr. Isaac Hankes – a meteorologist and weather research analyst at Refinitiv claims that “the
Paris climate agreement is as political as it is scientific, and even if fully embraced will not offset
much more than about 0.1°C of warming”. This highlights the importance of personal action by
anyone concerned about the effects of warming to make a difference. However, in order to act
on a threat, it is essential to acknowledge the threat. Different studies demonstrate that
enhancing environmental awareness leads to better outcomes in the planning and
management of environmental resources.
Importance of education
Education is positively associated with environmental awareness such as climate change.
According to [7] educated people are more concerned about their surrounding environment
and they have better access to information about the environment. This proves the importance
of education. Pakistan falls significantly behind many countries in providing access to education
with a literacy rate of 58% [8]. Increased awareness assists in preparing and implementing
climate change adaptation measures, such as adjustments in natural and manmade systems to
reduce the likely impacts of climate change
Chapter 3
Research Methodology
The questionnaire was conducted in simple English language to reduce the risk of ambiguity. It
was composed of 17, mostly close-ended questions. Fist few questions were asked to collect
the socio-demographic information including their age and education. This is an important
segment of any research as demographic questions help describe the characteristics of the
participants.
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Research Method
In general two types of research methods are being used quantitative and qualitative. The main
objective of this research was to explore the level of awareness regarding climate change
therefore quantitative data collection method was employed. Quantitative research can be faster
as compared to qualitative. As our research is being done for academic purposes and is time
limited so that is why we used a quantitative approach.
Data Collection
We used a questionnaire as our primary data collection method as our respondents are
geographically scattered and it could facilitate the respondents. The questionnaire was hosted on
Google forms which is an interactive online platform. Google forms provide automatic analysis
of some of the answers provided by the participants. Figure 1 is the interface of the automatic
result analysis from the response page of the survey.
Figure 1: Interface of the response page of the survey
Research Participants
The questionnaire was distributed through various messenger applications and mailing lists, including
recipients from FAST National University. Keeping in view the limitation of time and resources we the
survey was being run for 10 days and a total of 50 participants took part in the survey.
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Chapter 4
Results
Demography
Age: According to the demography profile 78% of respondents were aged between 18-24 years
while 10% were aged between 25-34 years. Figure 2 shows the complete age distribution of
respondents.
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
39
5
2
Below 17
18 - 24
Years Old
25 - 34
Years Old
0
2
2
35 - 44
Years Old
45 - 54
Years Old
Above 55
Figure 2: Respondents by Age
Education: The study was conducted with 50 respondents, between 52% of respondents are high school
students, 40% of respondents are bachelor students, 2% of respondents are master’s students and only
6% of respondents had completed their PhDs. Figure 3 illustrates the respondents by their respectable
education.
30
26
25
20
20
15
10
5
1
3
0
High School
Bachelor's
Degree
Master's
Degree
Ph.D or higher
Figure 3: Respondents by Education
Table 1 shows the response of the participants on their climate change knowledge. The majority (40) of
the research participants acquired knowledge about climate change from some source and 10% had not
heard of climate change at all. When asked about what caused climate change more than half (52%) of
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the research participants believe humans are the main cause for climate change. Response varied from
pollution (20.6%) to industrialization (21.2%). As many as 22.2% believed that deforestation is one of the
causes and 36% attributed climate change to be a natural phenomenon.
Table 1
Variable
Frequency
Have you heard of what ‘Climate Change’ means from any
source?
Yes
80%
No
10%
Somewhat
10%
Is Climate Change caused by humans?
Yes
52%
No
22%
Maybe
26%
In terms of the source of knowledge, the internet was the most commonly mentioned (73%), followed
by television (69%). Figure 4 illustrates the complete distribution of sources as per the respondents.
None
4
School
1
Internet
35
Blog
19
Newspaper
17
33
Television
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Figure 4: What is the main source of your information on climate change?
We also asked all the participants climate change related questions in order to assess their seriousness
about the threat. 30% participants believe there are more important issues than climate change. Figure
5 shows how participants ranked possible threats to our society, where 5 mean the most serious and 1
the least serious threat. We can see that most of the votes were allocated to unemployment as the most
serious threat, followed by overpopulation. Participants were least concerned about climate change.
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Figure 5: Ranking the possible threats to the society
In addition to the environmental elements, participants’ knowledge of climate change related policies
was also very limited where most of the participants (67.3%) were completely unaware about the
climate change related activities and policies. Figure 6 demonstrates participants’ level of knowledge
regarding policies.
Figure 6: Are you aware about the environmental policies in your country?
Majority participants believe individuals hold most responsibility to tackle climate change followed by
government. The complete response is demonstrated in figure 7. When asked if they are satisfied with
the initiatives taken by the industries and corporations to reduce climate change, only 31.3%
participants were satisfied.
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Figure 7: On a scale of 1-to-5 (5 being strongest) how much responsibility each hold to tackle climate change?
Most of the participants (83%) had taken part in some activity out of concern for climate change. In
terms of actions, plantation was the most commonly mentioned response followed by plastic avoidance
and water conservation. Asked if they will be willing to pay more for energy produced from low carbon
resources or renewable energy, only 30% participants agreed to pay more while 32% disagreed and 38%
were unsure.
Chapter 5
Discussion & Analysis
This study is a small-scale quantitative attempt to assess the knowledge and perception of the
population of one of the most vulnerable country about climate change. The findings provide important
insights into what people think and believe from their experiences. Around 63 percent population of
Pakistan comprises youth aged between 15 and 33 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1200364.pdf.
Since we distributed the survey through various messenger applications and mailing lists, most of the
participants were bachelors and masters students. The majority of participants were youth aged
between 18 and 34 and unlike the previous studies they have a basic understanding about climate
change.
In our research, participants with higher level of education were more likely to be aware of climate
change than those with lower education levels. Previous studies also support our findings [7]. Out of 50
participants, eighty percent knew what ‘Climate Change’ is whereas in the previous survey almost half of
the respondents (53%) were not aware of the phenomenon of climate change [4]. One big difference in
the two surveys was the level of education of the respondents. In the previous research 150 local
officials from rural background were selected for questionnaire while most of the respondents in our
survey were from urban educated background. From our study, of those who had knowledge about
climate change, the majority named internet and television as their source. Very few people mentioned
hearing about climate change from teachers. This indicates that internet ad media are important source
of information whereas schools are yet to play their part in creating awareness about climate change.
Interestingly majority participants blame humans for the climate change and believe individuals hold
most responsibility to tackle climate change. With regards to causes or reasons for climate change, most
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of our participants mentioned deforestation followed by industrialization and pollution. Only a small
fraction of participants think climate change is a natural phenomenon. However participants themselves
were least concerned about climate change and were unaware about the environmental policies and
activities in their country. This finding has important implications for local level planning and policy
development as it shows the information gap and lack of engagement from the government.
There are several strengths of our research. Participants of our survey were from various different
geographical locations from Pakistan. This makes the findings from this study more relevant and reliable.
The results may be used as the basis for a potential analysis of cohorts. There were a few limitations to
the study, including the urban bias, as we relied on our survey with all participants belonging to an
urban educated background. Rural population In Pakistan was reported at 63.09% in 2019 according to
World Bank https://tradingeconomics.com/pakistan/rural-population-percent-of-total-population-wbdata.html#:~:text=Rural%20population%20(%25%20of%20total,compiled%20from%20officially%20reco
gnized%20sources.
References
[1] E. G. Franco, "The Global Risks Report 2020," World Economic Forum, Genevea, 2020.
[2] Duraiappah, "Lack of Awareness The Problem," Convention on biological diversity, 2011.
[3] P. D. Nunn, "Responding to the challenges of climate change in the Pacific Islands: management and
technological imperatives," Inter-Research Science Publisher, 2009.
[4] Z. Shahid and A. Piracha, "Awareness of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation at Local Level in
Punjab, Pakistan," in Water Science and Technology Library, vol. 72, Springer, 2016.
[5] Y. Bhandari, "US Survey Finds Lack of Awareness on Global Warming," Inter Press Service , Wisconsin,
2019.
[6] M. Hussain, A. R. Butt, F. Uzma, R. Ahmed and H. Ullah, "Divisional disparities on climate change
adaptation and mitigation in Punjab, Pakistan: local perceptions, vulnerabilities, and policy
implications.," 2 September 2019.
[7] S. Oskamp and T. Mainieri, "Green Buying: The Influence of Environmental Concern on Consumer
Behavior," The Journal of Social Psychology , vol. 137, no. 2, 2010.
[8] M. E. HALEPOTO, "Literacy rate," The Nation, Jamshoro, 2020.
[9] M. Oxley, "Pakistan Floods : Preventing Future Catastrophic Flood Disasters," 2010.
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Appendix
Sample Questionnaire
1. What is your age? Under 17 years old
Ο Under 17 years old
Ο 18 – 24 years old
Ο 25 – 34 years old
Ο 35 – 44 years old
Ο 45 – 54 years old
Ο 55 years or older
2. What is the highest degree or level of education you have completed?
Ο High School
Ο Bachelor's Degree
Ο Master's Degree
Ο Ph.D. or higher
3. Have you ever heard of what 'Climate Change' means from any source?
Ο Yes
Ο No
Ο Somewhat
4. On which of the following platforms, have you heard about climate change?
Ο Television
Ο Newspaper
Ο Blog
Ο Internet
Ο None
Ο School
5. Is climate change caused by humans
Ο Yes
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Ο No
Ο Maybe
6. Assuming climate change is happening, what do you think it is caused by?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7. How worried are you about climate change?
Not at all worried
1
2
3
4
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
5
Ο
Very worried
8. Are you aware about the environmental policies in your country?
Ο Yes
Ο No
9. How much do you think climate change threatens your personal health and safety?
Not at all
1
2
3
4
5
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
To a great extent
10. Are you satisfied with the initiatives taken by corporations and industries to reduce
climate change?
Ο Yes
Ο No
11. Please rate, which issues are of more concern in your opinion, 5 being most
concerning?
1
2
3
4
5
Climate change
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
Overpopulation
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
Unemployment
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
12. On a scale of 1-to-5 (5 being strongest) how much responsibility each hold to tackle
climate change?
Government
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1
2
3
4
5
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
International Organisation
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
Individuals
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
Ο
13. Please state your level of agreement or disagreement for the following statements
regarding climate change?
a. Each one of us can reduce the effects of climate change
Ο Agree
Ο Neutral
Ο Disagree
b. Climate change is a natural phenomenon
Ο Agree
Ο Neutral
Ο Disagree
c. Climate change topic is exaggerated by the media
Ο Agree
Ο Neutral
Ο Disagree
d. There are more important matters than climate change
Ο Agree
Ο Neutral
Ο Disagree
14. Do you follow climate change related activities and policies?
Ο Yes
Ο No
15. Have you ever taken, or do you regularly take, any action out of concern for climate
change? If yes, what did you do/ are you doing?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
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16. Would you be willing to pay more for energy produced from low carbon resources or
renewable energy?
Ο Yes
Ο No
Ο Maybe
17. Will the remedies to climate change drive more people into poverty with higher costs?
Ο Yes
Ο No
Ο Maybe
This survey was designed to understand public perception about climate change and to identify
key factors, challenges, and barriers to environmental and climate-conscious behaviour. The
objective of this survey was to understand how well the audience is aware of the topic ‘Climate
change’. Understanding audience opinion is critically important, which can help in formulating
future environment policies.
Conclusion
The basic knowledge of the study participants on climate change was more than our
assumption (80%) however there’s still great lack of awareness about the policies and activities
against climate change. Lack of funds and government awareness are the main barriers that
need to be removed in promoting awareness about climate change among the public. Other
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barriers include the lack of government interest, corruption and lack of planning. True solution
lies in effectuating a change in the habits of individuals, rather than of entities.
Our study suggest education sector needs to be engaged more for increasing knowledge on
climate change. Education is an essential element of the global response to climate change. It
helps people understand and address the impact of global warming, increases “climate literacy”
among young people, encourage changes in their attitude and behaviour, and help them adapt
to climate change related trends. According to M. Oxley increased sense of awareness and
interest in disaster preparedness through developing and forecasting early warning and
evacuation systems [9]. Teachers and imams of mosques need formal training on climate
change and its impact so that they can translate that knowledge into students and play their
part in fight against climate change.
Based on these key findings, policy makers can develop effective communication strategies to
raise the level of awareness. The hope is to raise awareness of the facts and trust the collective
consciousness will evolve to reflect them because only then would the earth and its inhabitants
stand a chance.
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