Public Perception of Climate Change Awareness in Akinyele Local Government Area, Oyo State, Nigeria

Aims: The study investigated the awareness, causes, effects and mitigation strategies of climate change revealing that generally the people are knowledgeable of the issues involved.

Study Area: This study was carried out in Oyo state, specifically Akinyele Local Government Area Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.

Methodology: Two hundred and forty copies of the questionnaire were administered to the residents of Akinyele local government taking into consideration the prominent areas within each of the twelve (12) wards of the local government area. Twenty respondents using simple random sampling from each of the 12 wards were selected making up 240 questionnaires.

Results: The assessment of socioeconomic characteristics of the population showed that the area is male-dominated with only 45% being female. It is predominantly Yoruba (80.8%) with 55% being 40 years and below and Christians and Muslims sum up to 93.3%. The majority of the population are involved with various occupations while 30.8% constituting the dependent population (students 22.5% and unemployed 8.3%). The study investigated the awareness, causes, effects and mitigation strategies of climate change revealing that generally, the people are knowledgeable of the issues involved. Concerning awareness, 53.3% of the people consider themselves to be knowledgeable of climate change with 62.55 of males being more knowledgeable than females (37.5%). Equally noteworthy is the fact that students were the most knowledgeable of the occupation group with 39%, with artisans who have 0% knowledge about global warming. However, schools constituted the least source of information of the inhabitants with 9.5% while Print and Electronic media seem to have the high source of information (33%).

Conclusion: It is suggested that environmental issues such as global warming and climate change should be included in the school curriculum and studied at various levels.