Understanding Climate Change perceptions among University students: A Qualitative Analysis

Abstract

There has been an increase in Climate change awareness since the 1980’s and the people in developed countries are taking measures to dealt with its adverse effects. Even the United Nations Organization (UNO) recognizes the impact Climate change causes on both social and economic development and that combating towards its adverse effects has been declared a global sustainability goal (SDG) for the UNO. The developed countries are actively working towards this SDG, however there a vast amount of unawareness observed within the developing and underdeveloped countries’ population, who show less concern towards the risks associated with Climate change. Our aim of this research is to investigate what perspectives the young student population in a developing country (Pakistan) keeps regarding the Climate change problem. For this qualitative study, nine semi-structured and open-ended questionnaires about Climate change awareness were formulated and about 112 students from University of Karachi participated in this qualitative study through convenient sampling. The responses from those interview questions were analyzed based on the themes that were occurring frequently. Some of the themes which were generated from the answers were; lack of awareness, moderate risk perception, accurate awareness, high knowledge, moderate awareness, positive impact on mood, negative impact on mood, negative impact on mood and cognition, lack of cooperation, and pro-environmental behavior. Themes such as lack of awareness and pro-environmental behavior were occurring the most frequent as compared to other significant themes identified from the participant’s responses, which does indicate that individuals showed a lack of awareness regarding information of climate change yet also showed interest towards pro-environmental or environmentally friendly practices if given the feasibility.