IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcli/v11y2021i11d10.1038_s41558-021-01171-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climate change literacy in Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Nicholas P. Simpson

    (University of Cape Town)

  • Talbot M. Andrews

    (University of Connecticut)

  • Matthias Krönke

    (University of Cape Town)

  • Christopher Lennard

    (University of Cape Town)

  • Romaric C. Odoulami

    (University of Cape Town)

  • Birgitt Ouweneel

    (University of Cape Town)

  • Anna Steynor

    (University of Cape Town)

  • Christopher H. Trisos

    (University of Cape Town
    University of Cape Town)

Abstract

Climate change literacy encompasses being aware of both climate change and its anthropogenic cause, and thus underpins informed mitigation and adaptation responses. However, climate change literacy rates and their predictors remain poorly understood across the Global South. Here analysis of Africa’s largest representative public opinion survey shows climate change literacy ranges from 23 to 66% of the population across 33 countries, with larger variation at subnational scales (for example, 5–71% among states in Nigeria). Strong positive predictors of climate change literacy are education and mobility, but poverty decreases climate change literacy, and country-level climate change literacy rates are, on average, 12.8% lower for women than men. Perceived drought experiences and historical trends in precipitation are also important predictors. These results highlight where interventions can target specific regions and demographics to increase climate change literacy and help ensure that responses are informed by better understanding of current and future climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholas P. Simpson & Talbot M. Andrews & Matthias Krönke & Christopher Lennard & Romaric C. Odoulami & Birgitt Ouweneel & Anna Steynor & Christopher H. Trisos, 2021. "Climate change literacy in Africa," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(11), pages 937-944, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:11:y:2021:i:11:d:10.1038_s41558-021-01171-x
    DOI: 10.1038/s41558-021-01171-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01171-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41558-021-01171-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anna-Kathryn Leve & Hanno Michel & Ute Harms, 2023. "Implementing climate literacy in schools — what to teach our teachers?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(10), pages 1-17, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:11:y:2021:i:11:d:10.1038_s41558-021-01171-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.