climate change awareness research paper

• Original article
• Open access
• Published: 09 February 2022

The impact of climate change awareness on behavioral changes in Germany: changing minds or changing behavior?

• Sandra Venghaus   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9352-6604 1 , 2 ,
• Meike Henseleit 1 &
• Maria Belka 1  

Energy, Sustainability and Society volume  12 , Article number:  8 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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The increasing frequency of extreme weather events across the globe, the intensifying international debates about the political urgency to mitigate climate change, as well as the respective more action demanding social movements have caused a significant increase in climate change awareness among the population. Little research, however, has systematically analyzed the behavioral impact of this development. Using Germany as a case study, we therefore scrutinize whether the recent increase in climate change awareness triggered mainly changes in public perceptions concerning environmental and sustainability issues or whether it has led to sustainable behavioral shifts. Based on previous research, we considered two routes through which an increase in climate change awareness can instigate changes: (a) directly by leading to behavioral changes towards more sustainable consumption decisions, or (b) indirectly by exerting pressure on the political process.

The analyzed data in the three consumption sectors of mobility, food consumption and housing confirm the continuing prevalence of an attitude–behavior gap: although there is a broad, strongly positive attitude towards climate protection and increasingly high problem awareness of climate change, so far this attitude does not immediately translate into notable behavioral changes. With regard to effects on political agenda setting, however, the effects are much more immediate. The results confirm strong pressure on the political process mainly through shifts in voter behavior.

Conclusions

The results show that the increase in climate change awareness has spurred dynamics in the debate around climate change both among the population and in the political realm. Fueled by the intense media coverage of the Fridays For Future movement and related activities, a snowball effect has been set off, opening a window of opportunity for significant shifts towards more effective and rigorous climate policies. Politicians and decision-makers now have the opportunity to implement sustainability measures with strong support of the population, even if these imply higher costs. Whether there will be further shifts in the current lifestyle towards a more sustainable one, lifestyle changes should be carefully monitored in the coming years, as relevant data are only now becoming available.

The past three years have been characterized by noticeable changes that propose a significant increase in general climate change awareness among the population. This trend reflects itself not least in the immense number of protest events that have taken place over the past years—often under the umbrella of the Fridays For Future movement—demanding more action for climate change. This movement emerged following Greta Thunberg’s strike for climate action in front of the Swedish parliament in August 2018, after which more and more students joined in order to support her claim for more climate action in Sweden. Coincidentally, at the time when an unusual hot period and drought covered Europe [ 1 ], within only 3 months, the strike for more active climate action had spread rapidly across the world to Australia, Belgium, France, Finland and Denmark [ 2 ]. By the end of the year, almost 10,000 students demonstrated in Australia and more than 1,000 students in Belgium [ 3 ]. The Hashtag #FridaysForFuture emerged [ 4 ]. Between August 2018 and October 2019, the movement organized over 49,000 events in over 6,300 cities across 215 countries [ 5 ]. In total, during the same period 8.6 million people participated in the strikes [ 5 ]. The Fridays For Future movement was thus extremely successful with respect to its geographic scope and the globally mobilized strike participation.

In 2019, the Youth Study conducted by Shell further supports the assumption of growing climate change awareness: whereas in 2015 younger generations were most afraid of terror attacks, in 2019 climate change and environmental pollution were perceived as the highest threat by 66% of all interviewees [ 6 ]. A further finding of the study was that 71% of all interviewees identified protection of the environment to be much more important than a high living standard [ 6 ].

However, where these developments provide an obvious indication that the increasing climate change awareness has mobilized a large number of people to strike and protest for more action on climate change, little research has explicitly addressed the behavioral impacts. In this paper, we therefore have focused on examining behavioral changes in consumption decisions related to increased climate change awareness using Germany as a case study. To analyze behavioral changes, we review the available data to identify how far climate change awareness has in fact manifested itself in behavioral changes towards climate protection, or whether it halts in the minds of people merely leading to controversial debates and either no or ambivalent behavioral responses in Germany. Based on previous research [e.g., 7 , 8 ], we can hypothesize that a significant change in climate change awareness not only affects the public perception, but also translates into noticeable changes in people’s behavior. These effects may take two routes—positively in the form of behavioral confirmation (i.e., information leads to positive reinforcement), or adversely in the form of protest behavior [ 9 , 10 ].

Accordingly, the remainder of this paper is structured as follows. In Sect. 2, we further elaborate the research background by describing recent developments regarding climate change awareness and the contribution of household consumption decisions to CO 2 emissions in Germany. In Sect. 3, the analytical research approach is introduced. The results of the study are presented in Sect. 4, differentiated between findings relating to consumption decisions (4.1), and effects relating to voter behavior (4.2) in Germany, and all results are discussed in Sect. 5. Conclusions drawn from these results are further discussed in the final Sect. 6.

Climate change awareness and sustainable consumption

During the last decade, various surveys have confirmed a strong increase in public concern about climate change among the population [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ]. One in three people (37%), for example, state they believe that global warming/climate change is the number one environmental concern (Germany: 50%) [ 19 ], and about 80% of people are of the opinion that urgent action is needed to combat the climate crisis (in Germany: 73%), as a survey conducted in 2019 in 27 countries showed [ 18 ]. Currently, the social sustainability barometer of the German energy transition confirms that over 90% of the German population generally approves and politically supports the common project of the “Energiewende” [ 20 ]. However, at the same time, only 28% of the population states a positive willingness to pay more, e.g., for car or air travel in order to protect the climate [ 20 ]. The numbers well support the previous research, which has demonstrated that especially the topics of sustainability and climate change are prone to the so-called attitude–behavior gap: especially environmental attitudes of people only loosely translate into actions able to effectively reduce their environmental impact [ 21 , 22 , 23 ]. So while there is generally a very strong supportive attitude towards climate protection and sustainability as a concept (including a stated willingness to act), this individual willingness to act is often inferior to other factors, e.g., cost considerations, convenience or perceived responsibility [ 24 ]. According to the low-cost hypothesis of environmental behavior, environmental attitudes typically only promote “green” actions when the related behavioral costs, i.e., the ‘burden’ of behavioral change, are low, as, for example, in the case of turning off lights when leaving a room, buying organic food, or separating waste [ 21 ]. Concerned people use low-cost actions to reduce the cognitive dissonance between their concern for the environment and rational realization of the environmental impact of their actions, while avoiding costly actions despite their higher effectiveness [ 25 ]. Changes in behavior which imply higher personal behavioral costs like not taking the car to work or reducing air travel are translated into action much more rarely.

With respect to the climate effects of households, only roughly one–third (33.6%) of CO 2 emissions are caused by direct emissions, whereas indirect emissions embedded in consumer goods account for the dominant share of 66.4%. These indirect effects are split almost equally across energy products (19.0%), goods (24.4%), and services (23.1%) [ 26 ]. Thus, household decisions, especially in high-income countries such as those in North America, Europe or Australia, play a key role in reaching the goals of the Paris Agreement [ 27 ]. In order to select the most relevant categories, we therefore surveyed those consumption categories for data, which most significantly contribute to the carbon footprint of households in high-income countries. Specifically, these are (a) mobility (accounting for roughly 30% of household GHG emissions in Germany); (b) food consumption (accounting for roughly 30% of household GHG emissions in Germany), and (c) housing (accounting for roughly 20% of household GHG emissions in Germany) [ 27 , 28 ]. In sum, these three sectors account for over 80% of total German household GHG emissions.

Given this relevance of household consumption decisions for the mitigation of climate change, in the following we address the question as to whether the identified increase in the level of climate change awareness actually bridges the attitude–behavior gap. The following review of available empirical data shall shed light on this question. In order to determine, whether there is actually a measurable effect in terms of behavioral change in Germany, we surveyed the available data within the three categories mentioned above.

Research approach and method

A first step thus consisted in reviewing the available information on recent developments in mobility behavior, food consumption and housing choices for the case study Germany. For the three sectors under consideration, a search was conducted for key indicators, before the identified information was qualitatively analyzed in order to describe their relevance in the context of climate change awareness. The data search included both available scientific publications and reports, as well as raw data from the German national and federal statistical offices, government data, as well as data from personal correspondence with scientists and companies. For the latter to be considered in the study, the data needed to fulfill the following two criteria: (a) relevance to the objectives of the Fridays For Future movement (i.e., primarily climate protection), and (b) availability of a time series to cover the relevant period of change (i.e., between 2016 and 2019). Following the search, the available data were screened for relevance, adequacy and completeness. The search resulted in the following data to be considered (Table 1 ).

In a next step, the data were then reviewed and analyzed with respect to noticeable changes and change rates over the relevant period from 2016 to 2019. Although at this point data would also be available for the year 2020, consumption behavior during this year was heavily influenced by the global Covid-19 pandemic. Accordingly, this year is not considered in the analysis.

Analysis and results

Consumption decisions.

In order to identify and trace the changes in behavior over the relevant period from 2016 until 2019 and to compare the differences among the selected indicators for the considered sectors of mobility, food consumption and housing, the respective growth rates over the years were calculated (Table 2 ). For an overview of the absolute data, see Table 3 in the appendix. As the data overview shows, there is currently no clear evidence that increasing climate change awareness has actually led to significant behavioral changes. There are two indicators, which may signal a trend towards more sustainable consumption decisions. For the development of the share of SUVs in new vehicle registrations the growth rate decreased from 19.7% and 20.4%, respectively, for the previous two periods (i.e., 2016/2017 and 2017/2018) to 15.8% for the period from 2018 to 2019. It is, however, not distinguishable from the data, whether this trend is in fact induced by increased environmental awareness or by an incipient market saturation. Over the same periods, the growth rate for the number of people consuming electricity from renewable sources increased from 7.9% and 8.7% between 2016/2017 and 2017/2018, to 10.9% between 2018 and 2019. However, counter to these developments, the number of vegetarians decreased by 3.3% for the period 2018/2019, whereas it had increased by 7.8% and 10.7%, respectively, during the periods of 2016/2017 and 2017/2018.

Because these selective data only indicatively address an extract of behavioral changes in the sectors, in the following the developments in the sectors will be described in further detail.

As indicated in Table 2 , for the purpose of analyzing consumption behavior in the sector of mobility, specific consideration was given to three modes of transportation—namely passenger vehicle use, airplane travel, and railway travel. Globally it is estimated that transportation is responsible for about 22% of the total greenhouse gas emissions, with road transportation accounting for roughly three quarters of this share. Whereas passenger vehicles and trucks contribute roughly equal shares (i.e., about 35% each), aviation and maritime transportation account for 11% each [ 35 ]. Furthermore, although aviation only accounts for 2% of the total anthropogenic CO 2 emissions, its contribution to climate change is estimated to be in the order of 5%, given that the emissions occur at flying altitude with additional, albeit transient, atmospheric warming effects [ 36 ].

In Germany, individual passenger vehicle use accounts for 76% of the total mileage, of which about 43% is attributed to recreational purposes like vacationing, hobbies, meeting friends, etc. The remaining mileage is split between commuting (22%), business trips (15%), and detours for dropping of or picking up people (5%) [ 37 ]. This distribution has remained roughly stable over the last decades [ 38 ].

Although there has long been a profound understanding of the detrimental climate effects of motorized transport, many studies confirm a lasting attitude–behavior gap between acknowledging these negative climate effects of automotive use and the consequentially needed reduction to mitigate its climate effects [ 39 , 40 , 41 ]. Consistent with these findings, the increasing climate change awareness and the Fridays For Future movement so far have not had a significant reductive effect, neither on the number of passenger vehicle registrations [ 42 ], nor on the mileage per vehicle [ 43 ]. The same holds true for the passenger vehicle mileage per person with nearly identical values for 2017 and 2018 Footnote 1 [ 44 ] and a slight increase for 2019 [ 45 ]. Instead, there has been a steady trend towards purchasing ever larger and uneconomical vehicles (Table 2 ). New vehicle registrations increased for both SUVs and off-road vehicles by 15.3% and 14.1%. respectively, over the period from January until September 2019 as compared to the same period in 2018, whereas it decreased for both compact cars and medium-class cars by 3.2% and 5.1%, respectively [ 42 ].

Furthermore, the year 2019 marked a new record high in the number of airplane passengers for Germany [ 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 ]. Compared to the first six months of the year 2018, the number of passengers for non-domestic inter-European flights increased by 4.5% to a total of 47.3 million, with increases especially in flights to Turkey (+ 370,000), Italy (+ 266,000), and Spain (+ 195,000). Similarly, but not as drastically, the number of passengers of domestic flights increased by 2.3% to a total of 11.6 million, whereas the passenger number of intercontinental flights increased by 3.5% to a total of 10.1 million [ 50 ]. However, for the second half of the year 2019, the Federal Association of the German Air Transport Industry (Bundesverband der Deutschen Luftverkehrswirtschaft) reported a notable decrease in domestic flights with − 2% for the third and − 9% for the fourth quarter in 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 [ 48 , 49 ], amounting to a total reduction in domestic flights by about 1.8% [ 51 ]. Interestingly, in the home country of Greta Thunberg, Sweden, this picture looks different: according to the Scandinavian airline SAS AB, at Swedish airports the number of passengers declined by 2% in 2019 compared to 2018, and Sweden’s airport operator reported it handled 9% fewer passengers for domestic flights in 2019 [ 52 ]. Reasons may include the following: on the one hand, the Swedish government introduced an air traffic tax in April 2018, which increases the price per ticket by between 5.80 € and 38.80 € and, on the other hand, “flight-shaming”, an anti-flying movement which emerged in 2017 after singer Staffan Lindberg had pledged to give up flying, boosted in 2019 following the campaigns by Greta Thunberg and other influential people, such as, e.g., filmmaker and naturalist David Attenborough or primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall [ 47 , 53 ].

In several recent public and customer surveys [e.g., 14 , 52 , 54 – 56 ], a high willingness to overthink travel plans because of their climate impact was confirmed. A global survey of 19,023 adults conducted between June 21 and July 5, 2019, found that about one in seven consumers (14%) would use a form of transportation with a lower carbon footprint than air travel, even if it was less convenient or more expensive. Twice as many (29%) would do so, if it was as convenient as or no more expensive than flying. Age (i.e., younger than 35 years) and education (i.e., higher education) had a positive impact on the willingness to choose a more environmentally benign form of transportation than flying [ 56 ]. However, the stated awareness of and willingness to consider the harmful effects of airplanes in their travel behavior so far has rarely affected behavior. In fact, the number of domestic flights decreased in the second half of the year 2019 in Germany. This, however, was likely driven by a slowing German economy and a reduction of overcapacity by airlines. Due to the Covid-19-pandemic in the first half of 2020, we will not be able to recognize at least until 2021, whether reductions in demand were actually driven by environmental motivation [ 49 ].

In addition to the increasing numbers of airplane passengers, also no significant rise in railway mileage has been reported for 2018 and 2019 [ 50 ] apart from a steady increase of around 2% per year. However, with the increasing awareness of the negative climate impacts of air travel, the willingness to pay for flight carbon offsets is spurting upward. This trend seems to hold across a very broad range of organizations: Myclimate, a Swiss non-profit organization, whose clients include Deutsche Lufthansa AG, reported a fivefold jump in its credits over the period from summer 2018 to summer 2019. At Ryanair Holdings Plc (Europe’s largest discount carrier), the number of passengers deciding for voluntary carbon offset payments has almost doubled over 18 months. Verra, the largest program for voluntary carbon offset credits globally, reported their monthly usage rate for offsets jumped by 23% during 2019 to a high of 3.8 million tons a month [ 53 ]. In a personal correspondence with an employee of PrimaKlima, a German carbon offset organization, an enormous increase in private donations over the period from summer 2018 to summer 2019 was stated. Although these numbers confirm a significantly growing public demand for carbon offsets that is temporally correlated to the emergence of the Fridays For Future movement and the related increase in climate change awareness, it is important to keep in mind that this increase is referenced to a very low starting point. At Ryanair, for example, overall still less than 3% of the customers choose to purchase carbon offset credits, of which, however, the largest demand is registered from Germany [ 53 ]. Atmosfair, a German non-profit organization for greenhouse gas compensation, had a financial volume generated by voluntary donations of about 7 million € in 2017, about 10 million € in 2018, and about 20 million € in 2019 [ 57 ]. The 2018 financial volume of PrimaKlima, according to a personal correspondence, was in the range of a “lower six-digit sum”. Nonetheless, a clear trend is noticeable.

Food consumption

For almost two decades, total meat consumption in Germany had been stable at about 60 kg per capita per year, with in-home consumption steadily decreasing, and out-of-home consumption steadily rising. Recent variations indicated a slight decrease in total per capita meat consumption by 500 g for 2017, whereas for 2018 a small increase of 200 g per capita was reported [ 58 ]. A stronger decrease was observed for 2019 (59.7 kg per capita, i.e., 700 g less than in 2018) [ 59 ]. The decrease occurred nearly exclusively in pork meat and only to a small proportion in cattle, whereas the consumption of poultry slightly increased. Reasons for this ongoing trend may be the following:

availability of more meat-free alternatives,

an increasing proportion of Muslims in Germany who forego pork meat for religious reasons,

avoidance of pork meat for health reasons and a respective increase in poultry consumption,

hot summers and thus fewer barbecues,

increased awareness of climate change and environmental and ethical issues [ 60 ].

Future statistical data will have to show, whether this development was caused by the extraordinarily hot summers, or whether there will, in fact, be a continuous reduction in meat consumption in Germany. If the latter is the case, other variables need to be considered in order to recognize to what extent this change can be credited to climate and environmental consciousness.

Regarding organic food, in 2019 consumer expenses increased by nearly 10% compared to 2018, which is a remarkable increment beyond the general trend of about 5% growth per year in this food sector. However, various factors may be responsible for this: on the one hand, demand grows faster than supply, which means that prices increase, and, thus, expenses also increase without an effect on the amount of purchased products [ 61 ]. Furthermore, the supply of organic products as well as sales channels get broader, including increasingly discounters and marketing activities for organic products. According to the German Federal Association of Natural Food Products [ 62 ], an increased environmental consciousness can be observed for organic retail in Germany: total sales of organic retail increased by 8.7% in 2019, with an even higher increase in the second half of the year, which is unusual. According to BNN, this is due to an increased awareness of environmental and climate issues, evoked by the Fridays For Future movement and the prevalence of the topics in the media. An indicator for this is the increased number of purchased vouchers in 2019 compared to 2018 with on average also higher amounts per voucher in 2018. For comparison, in 2018 the number of vouchers was smaller than in 2017, whereas the total amount per voucher was higher in 2018 than in 2017. This indicates that more people now purchase their food in organic retail stores, spending also more money there [ 62 ].

According to Verivox, the largest independent comparison portal in Germany, the number of newly concluded contracts of electricity from renewable sources (‘green electricity’) had been decreasing for years. However, recently a sharp increase was observed: in June 2019, 58% of consumers signing new contracts chose green electricity, whereas in June 2018 only 33% had done so. According to an energy expert of the platform, this increase can be attributed to the current climate debate: “Consumers are choosing increasingly green electricity when they feel affected by external incidents, like the atomic catastrophe of Fukushima in 2011” [ 63 ]. A similar trend was instigated by the global warming debate so strongly pushed into the public focus by Greta Thunberg and the awareness of climate change that was further fortified in Germany by the extreme heat waves of 2018 and 2019. Similar to the widespread increase in flight carbon offsets, this trend of increasing demand for green electricity is also consistently reported across various electricity suppliers. It was confirmed, for example, by the electricity provider E.on, who reported an increase in demand for green electricity of about 30% over the last 12 months from May 2018 until May 2019, and who likewise attributes the reason for this increase to the current public discourse about global warming [ 64 ]. Also, the green electricity provider Lichtblick observed a remarkable increase in the demand for green electricity by over 20,000 new contracts from January until June 2018, which—according to a spokesperson for Lichtblick—is far more than in recent years. He believes the climate debate plays an important role in this [ 65 ].

The effect of climate change awareness on voter behavior

Whereas past research has shown that behavioral changes, especially in the context of sustainability, often come along with an attitude–behavior gap [ 66 ], this gap (i.e., the barriers to behavioral change) are much lower in voting decisions, so that voter behavior can be a much more direct reflection of the effects of increased climate change awareness and the respective changes in public opinion.

Voter behavior and political participation

An often used indicator for the public’s attitudes towards environmental issues in Germany has been the popularity of the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Alliance 90/The Greens), a political party specifically addressing objectives of ‘green politics’ and the objective to promote climate protection and an ecologically sustainable society [ 67 ]. In this regard, recent data from Politbarometer, an organization that regularly surveys political trends in Germany, provides interesting observations (Fig.  1 ): since the early 1990s, the Alternative 90/The Greens have fluctuated between approximately 5 and 15% of the votes. However, in September/October of 2018 the stated preference for this party increased sharply to more than 22% in November 2018 [ 68 ]. Another, second sharp increase was reported for the period from May to June of 2019: at this time, just before the European Elections, a YouTuber called Rezo published a video, in which he extensively blames the traditional German political parties (especially the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party) for contributing to ever diverging social disparities and for accelerating climate change [ 69 , 70 ]. This video has been viewed more than 17 mio. times and was the most viewed YouTube video in Germany in 2019 [ 70 , 71 ], and in the aftermath more than 25% of the people stated their preference for the Green Party [ 68 ]. The publication of this video certainly served as a further energizer promoting climate change awareness among the German population.

Source: Forschungsgruppe Wahlen: Politbarometer, 13/01/2022

Development of the political environment in Germany,

Although, with a share of 20.5% of votes for the Greens in the election of the European Parliament in Germany in May 2019, these survey predictions of over 25% were not fully confirmed, this result marked an increase in votes by nearly 10% as compared to the previous election in 2014 and was by far the party’s best result ever in European elections. According to Bukow [ 69 ], this gain in votes can only be explained by the developments regarding environmental and climate protection policies—no other topic was more decisive for the election, and no other party was perceived to be as competent in this field as the Alliance 90/The Greens. Demographically, in all age groups under 60 the Alliance 90/The Greens received the majority of the votes. It was merely the age group 60 years and up, in which a majority voted for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) which lead to the overall win of this party [ 69 ]. Similarly, also in the 2021 German federal election the final result of 14.8% for the Greens did not confirm the predictions of well over 20% for the years between 2018 and 2020. However, nonetheless this result represents an increase by roughly 60% compared to the 2017 federal election (the Greens: 8.9% in 2017). Figure  1 further shows the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the support of the different political German parties. Whereas the pandemic initially evoked strong public support for the leading governing party (CDU) and its approach to handling the pandemic (with a peak of 44% in April of 2020), this tide turned as time went on, until finally roughly a month before the federal election the social democratic party (SPD) became the strongest party.

Furthermore, not only the election outcome, but also public participation in elections may be an important indicator. Voter turnout in the 2019 European Elections was the highest since 1994 (50.6%). This increase was especially driven by the younger generation—in the age group of under 25-year-olds voter turnout increased by about 14%, in the group of 25- to 29-year-olds it increased by 12% between 2014 and 2019. It can thus be surmised that the overall political interest increased [ 72 ].

During the same year 2019, three further state parliamentary elections were held in Germany. Whereas in the state of Bremen the Alliance 90/The Greens has been traditionally strong and their share of votes increased by 2.3% (from 15.1% to 17.4%) between 2015 and 2019 [ 73 ], in Sachsen and Brandenburg it increased by 2.9% (from 5.7% to 8.6%) [ 74 ] and by 4.6% (from 6.2% to 10.8%) [ 75 ], respectively, during this time. The detailed analysis shows that the Alliance 90/The Greens gained votes in each one of the 16 German federal states. Across the states, the share of votes increased on average by 8.6% [ 76 ].

In order to scrutinize the question of effectiveness, in this paper we conducted a review of available data to analyze whether climate change awareness does in fact manifest itself in behavioral changes towards climate protection, or whether it halts in the minds of people merely leading to controversial debates and either no or ambivalent behavioral responses in Germany.

Based on previous research, we considered two routes through which an increase in climate change awareness can instigate change: (a) directly by leading to behavioral changes towards more sustainable consumption and lifestyle decisions, or (b) indirectly by exerting pressure on the political process. As extension to this research, we paid specific attention to the household level in Germany [in the case of (a)], and the effects of voter behavior on political agenda-setting [in the case of (b)]. Furthermore, specific circumstances were considered, which during the relevant period (i.e., mainly the years 2018 and 2019) had influence on the surrounding social setting. These include the fact that an unusual heat and drought wave covered Europe during the summer of 2018.

The analyzed data in the three consumption sectors of mobility, food consumption and housing confirm the strong prevalence and impact of the attitude–behavior gap especially in the context of sustainability: although there is a broad, strongly positive attitude towards climate protection and increasingly high problem awareness of climate change, so far this attitude does not immediately translate into notable behavioral changes. Significant shifts were found for purchased electricity, where there is an unusual increase in green electricity contracts, and for the purchase of CO 2 compensation for air travel. Both of these have been considered examples of indulgence trading or reassurance of guilty conscience, as both do not require true or lasting changes in behavior. Further, remarkable shifts were also observed for meat consumption and the purchase of organic food for 2019 compared to previous years. This, however, may have been influenced by further factors besides a climate change awareness effect. Whether there will be further shifts towards actual and more sustainable lifestyle decisions will have to be carefully monitored in the coming years, as relevant data are only now becoming available. With regard to effects on political agenda-setting, however, the effects are much more immediate. Again, future research will have to carefully monitor to what extent this pressure will actually translate into more profound climate protection measures and policies.

As the analysis shows, increased climate change awareness has spurred significant dynamics in the debate around climate change and sustainability both among the population and in the political realm. Fueled by the intense media coverage of the Fridays For Future movement and related activities, a snowball effect has been set off, opening a window of opportunity for significant shifts towards more effective and rigorous climate policies [ 77 ]. Politicians and decision-makers now have the opportunity to implement sustainability measures with strong support of the population, even if these imply higher costs. Furthermore, this ‘climate change awareness window of opportunity’ happens to coincide with a second window of opportunity for changes in climate policy, namely one opened by the economic support programs following the Covid-19 Pandemic. Currently, immense publicly funded rescue packages are being debated and developed for the relief of economic losses caused by the Covid-19 crisis. This public funding could be linked to sustainability obligations (e.g., climate mitigation measures, reduced resource intensity, circular use of materials, the replacement of fossil resources by renewable ones, etc.) including also standards of social sustainability. There are now first indications, however, that this latter opportunity will be forgone.

Nonetheless, the urgency of the Covid-19 pandemic showed in an effective manner that, when needed, the German administration is able to change policies and even significantly reduce economic activities to a certain degree even on very short notice. Climate activists have underlined the very similar urgency for effective climate and environmental policies. Therefore, the formerly often mentioned economic arguments against immediate policy changes can now be questioned providing a possibility for activist actions and new lines of argumentations. The decided German coal phase-out by 2038 and the corresponding structural change process, especially in the three main lignite mining regions in Germany (i.e., the Rheinische Revier, the Lausitzer Revier and the Mitteldeutsches Revier) currently serve as a key cornerstone for the transformation towards a new sustainable economy, which will be funded by over 40 billion Euros in the coming years. In light of these new dynamics, research should closely accompany the upcoming developments providing constant monitoring and feedback regarding their sustainability. More research will also be needed to determine whether there is actually a lasting shift in paradigm regarding the climate crisis and the environment caused by increased climate change awareness, both in terms of the analyzed lifestyle and consumption decisions as well as with respect to policy-making.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

At the time of writing this paper (April 2020), the numbers for 2018 had not been finally confirmed.

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We would like to thank Dagmar Fiedler for her valuable advice and support throughout the publication process.

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Venghaus, S., Henseleit, M. & Belka, M. The impact of climate change awareness on behavioral changes in Germany: changing minds or changing behavior?. Energ Sustain Soc 12 , 8 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13705-022-00334-8

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Climate change knowledge, attitude and perception of undergraduate students in Ghana

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected] , [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Animal Biology and Conservation Science, University of Ghana, Legon-Accra, Ghana

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Department of Animal Biology and Conservation Science, University of Ghana, Legon-Accra, Ghana, Department of Pharmacy, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana

Roles Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Sociology, University of Ghana, Legon-Accra, Ghana

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Project administration, Software, Visualization, Writing – review & editing

Roles Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Resources, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Department of Animal Biology and Conservation Science, University of Ghana, Legon-Accra, Ghana, Center for Climate Change and Sustainability studies, University of Ghana, Legon-Accra, Ghana

• Benjamin Y. Ofori, 
• Evans P. K. Ameade, 
• Fidelia Ohemeng, 
• Yahaya Musah, 
• Jones K. Quartey, 
• Erasmus H. Owusu

• Published: June 7, 2023
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215
• Reader Comments

Anthropogenic climate change is a serious global environmental issue that threatens food and water security, energy production, and human health and wellbeing, ultimately jeopardizing the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A good understanding of climate change is essential for societies to adapt to or mitigate it. Yet, studies reveal that most people have limited knowledge, misconceptions and misunderstanding about climate change. Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to experience disproportionately higher adverse effects of climate change, but there is paucity of information about climate change knowledge in the region. Here, we assessed climate change knowledge, attitude and perception of undergraduate students in Ghana and the influential factors using a cross-sectional study and semi-structured questionnaire. The study population was full-time undergraduate students at the University of Ghana, Legon. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, logistic regressions, t-test and One-Way ANOVA. The results revealed that a strong majority of the respondents believe that climate change is real and largely human-induced, and they expressed concern about it. Yet, students lack basic knowledge and had some misconceptions about the causes and consequences of climate change. The overall knowledge score of the students on climate change was average (66.9%), although majority (92%) of the respondents claimed they had adequate (75–85%) knowledge of climate change. Our data also showed that respondents’ level of education, programme of study, ethnicity, religion and mother’s occupation had statistically significant association with their knowledge, perception and attitude on aspects of climate change. Our findings highlight knowledge gaps in climate change among undergraduate students in Ghana, underscoring the need to integrate climate change science into the education curricula at all levels of pre-tertiary schools and university for both the science and non-science programme.

Citation: Ofori BY, Ameade EPK, Ohemeng F, Musah Y, Quartey JK, Owusu EH (2023) Climate change knowledge, attitude and perception of undergraduate students in Ghana. PLOS Clim 2(6): e0000215. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215

Editor: Shah Md Atiqul Haq, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, BANGLADESH

Received: June 6, 2022; Accepted: April 21, 2023; Published: June 7, 2023

Copyright: © 2023 Ofori et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All the data is included in the manuscript.

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Anthropogenic climate change is one of the major global environmental problems of the 21 st century. Climate Change has been defined as a change in the state of the climate that can be identified by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties (e.g., temperature, precipitation, humidity, incident radiation, isothermality, wind patterns), and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer [ 1 ]. The reality of anthropogenic climate change has been established ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ by leading scientists worldwide. The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate the increasing extent and impact of anthropogenic climate change at the planetary scale [ 2 , 3 ]. According to [ 3 ], the global mean surface air temperature of the Earth has increased from 0.3 to about 0.6°C over the past 100 years, and could increase from about 1.4 to 5.8°C over the next 100 years depending on the amounts of greenhouse gases emitted. The global sea level has risen by 1.8 mm annually, while the Arctic sea ice is retreating by 2.7% per decade since 1961 [ 3 ].

Although climate change may be caused by natural events such as the Earth’s orbit, volcanic eruptions, meteoroids and asteroids reaching the Earth’s surface [ 4 , 5 ], accumulating evidence suggests that 21 st century climate change is caused by increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere due to human activities [ 6 ]. The main greenhouse gases (GHGs) are carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ), nitrous oxide (N 2 O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF 6 ) [ 7 , 8 ]. The socio-economic drivers that increase the concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere include household energy use, manufacturing, transportation, unsustainable consumption patterns and population growth [ 5 ].

Climate change has already impacted and will continue to have negative consequences on all aspect of human life and wellbeing, including food and water supplies, energy production and use, human health, socio-economics, lifestyles, governance, political stability, international trade and migration [ 9 ]. Climate change has also had noticeable effects on many natural systems, including marine and terrestrial ecosystems, such as alterations in species the distribution, timing of seasonal biological events (phenology), community composition and biotic interactions as well as increases in invasion of alien species, pests and diseases [ 10 – 15 ]. The adverse impact of climate change on human health and wellbeing, biodiversity and ecosystems threatens the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals [ 16 ].

There are two main strategies for addressing the climate change challenge, notably mitigation and adaptation [ 3 ]. Mitigation focuses on measures to reduce GHG concentrations of the atmosphere, while adaptation deals with reducing vulnerability to the impacts of climate change by adjusting social, economic and ecological systems [ 16 , 17 ]. Both mitigation and adaptation measures require political and ethical choices, technical innovations, and changes in people’s lifestyle [ 18 ]. Adaptation behaviour is of critical importance to reduce or avoid the negative impacts of climate change, and many studies have examined the factors that motivate individuals to adapt [ 19 ].

People’s knowledge and perception of climate change can have far-reaching consequences for their behaviour towards its mitigation [ 20 , 21 ]. Knowledge has been defined as a highly valued state in which a person is in cognitive contact with reality [ 22 ], while perception is the process by which information or stimuli is received and transformed into psychological awareness to construct meaningful experiences of the environment and the world at large [ 23 ]. Climate change knowledge therefore is a person’s cognitive contact with the reality or facts about climate change, while climate change perception is how information about the subject is received and transformed into psychological awareness, i.e., how people view and assess climate change in all its facets [ 24 ]. The behaviour needed to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change may be strongly influenced by how individuals and communities perceive the risks and impacts of climate change [ 21 ]. Therefore, the accuracy of people’s climate change knowledge and perception is of paramount importance for societies to undergo the transformations needed to mitigate and/or adapt to climate change [ 25 , 26 ]. However, studies show that many people have limited knowledge, misconceptions, and misunderstanding about the causes and impacts of climate change [ 27 – 30 ].

Developing countries, particularly those in sub-Sahara Africa, including Ghana, are projected to experience disproportionately higher adverse effects of climate change because they depend heavily on climate-sensitive economic processes such as agriculture and hydro-electric power, and also have limited resources to respond to these threats [ 31 ]. However, the environmental and economic policy agenda of these countries do not feature prominently issues related to climate change [ 32 ]. Additionally, there is scant information on climate change knowledge among the general public in sub-Sahara African countries, including Ghana [ 33 , 34 ]. A recent study revealed that climate change awareness levels in Africa are extremely low, with the proportion of people who have never heard about climate change reaching two-thirds of the adult populations in South Africa and Nigeria [ 35 ]. In Ghana, there remain huge gaps in the level of knowledge and awareness of the causes and effects of climate change among the general public [ 27 , 37 ].

Young people in high schools and university are being positioned as future leaders and will become key persons who can promote public discourse on climate change and help cultivate the ethical choices and lifestyle needed to minimize the carbon footprint within their local communities [ 36 , 37 ]. It is therefore imperative for them to have a better understanding of climate change. Further, since climate change education is an integral aspect in the sectoral and global approach to mitigating the negative impact of climate change, evaluating the knowledge and perceptions of climate change among university students can highlight the role higher academic institutions are playing to address the climate change challenge.

The present study therefore assessed undergraduate students’ understanding of climate change in Ghana using a cross-sectional study and de novo self-administered semi-structured paper questionnaire. Specifically, we evaluated undergraduate students’ (i) knowledge of climate change and its causes, and how they acquired such knowledge, (ii) their perception and attitude towards actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change and (iii) the respondents’ characteristics that influence their climate change knowledge, attitude and perception. Our findings can be taken into account when promoting climate change education by either including the issue in existing science courses or mounting new programme that focus primarily on climate change science at the pre-university and university levels of education.

Ethics statement

The ethics committee of the College of Basic and Applied Sciences, University of Ghana, Legon, granted ethical clearance for this study (ECBAS 047/17-18). Also, the consent of the participant was sought after clearly articulating the purpose of the research to them. The preamble on the questionnaire explained the purpose of the research and stated clearly that completing the questionnaire was indicative of respondents’ consent. To ensure confidentiality, the names and residential status of the respondents were not required.

Study design and setting

We used a cross-sectional sampling design to investigate the climate change knowledge, perception and attitude of undergraduate student at the university of Ghana, Legon. The study was conducted between March and May 2019, at the University of Ghana, Legon main campus. The University of Ghana, Legon was established in 1948, and is the premier university in Ghana. It offers courses leading to diploma, undergraduate, and graduate degrees (MA. MPhil, PhD). The university is structured around a Colleges, Faculties, Institutes/Schools, Departments and Centre of research and learning. The university offers programme in Sciences and Humanities (Arts, Social Sciences, Law and Business). The undergraduate programme are typically for four years. Students enrolled at the university typically would have completed senior high school. Ghana’s educational system consist of seven years basic (primary) education, three years each of junior high and senior high school. Therefore, students enrolling in a tertiary school would have gone through 12 years of pre-tertiary education. At the senior high school, students choose their programme of study and the programme run include General Arts, General Science, Visual Arts, and Business. When they get to university, majority of students continue in their disciplines from the high school.

Participants

The sample population consisted of 1st, 2nd, 3 rd , and 4th year regular undergraduate students at the University of Ghana, Legon main campus. This privileged group of individuals are likely to form the country’s future political, bureaucratic, financial and business elite.

We employed a de novo self-administered semi-structured paper questionnaire ( S1 Text ) in this study. The questionnaire was initially piloted among 25 students to provide face validity and to detect any ambiguities. The final questionnaire, which underwent some few changes was then administered to the students. The questionnaire was divided into four sections to gather data on the sociodemographic characteristics and evaluate the basic, effects, action and source knowledge on climate change of the respondents. Section A was for the collection of data on the respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics (independent variables). Indeed, several socio-demographic factors including gender, age, level of education, program of study, ethnicity, religion, employment status, socioeconomic status, and political ideology have been shown to influence the accuracy of climate change knowledge and perception [ 38 – 42 ]. In this study, we considered gender, ethnicity, religion, level of education, programme of study, and socio-economic status as the independent variables and climate change knowledge, perception and attitude as the dependent variables.

We asked respondents their gender, ethnicity and religion. Gender was a binary question of male or female. Studies in developed and developing countries show that climate change knowledge, perception and concerns vary between males and females, but the findings are largely inconclusive. While some studies found that men are more knowledgeable than women about climate change [ 43 , 44 ], other studies report that women exhibit greater knowledge and concern about climate change than men [ 45 – 47 ]. It was therefore important to know what the situation is concerning gender and climate change knowledge, attitude and perception in Ghana.

Ethnic affiliation is an important independent variable that explains a wide range of behaviours and orientations [ 48 ]. In Ghana, ethnicity is diverse and is mainly based on language as people who speak the same or similar languages see themselves as on group [ 49 ]. Ghana has a high degree of linguistic heterogeneity, with over 100 languages and about 50 sub-groups that can be categorized into 10 major language groups, which are largely defined by geographic location [ 48 ]. For convenience, these ethnic groups are further grouped into 5 broad categories, notably Akan, Ewe, Ga-Adangbe, Mole-Dagbani and others. The Akans are the largest (45.7%) ethnic group, occupying the southern and middle parts of the country, followed by the Mole-Dagbani (18.5%), who occupy the northern part, the Ewes (12.8%), who predominate in the south-eastern quarter of Ghana and Ga-Dangme (7.1%), who occupy the southern coast of the country. The middle and southern areas are characterized by rain forests. Northern Ghana has only one raining season (May-September), while southern Ghana has two raining seasons (April-July, and September-November).

Ghanaians are very religious and the situational importance of religion in Ghana cannot be overlooked. The Ghanaian outlook on religion is holistic, touching all aspects of lives, including thinking, social life and economic and environmental events [ 50 ]. There are three main religions in Ghana, notably Christianity, Islam and Traditional religions. According to the 2010 government census, approximately 71% of the Ghanaian population are Christians, 18% are Muslims, 5% are Traditional believers and 6% belongs to other religious groups or has no religious beliefs. The belief in God or Supreme Being as the controller of all things, including health and wellbeing, socio-economic, political and environmental events and comforter at all times is strongly preached in all religions in Ghana [ 51 ]. Therefore, understanding the perception and attitude of Ghanaians towards environmental event such as climate change cannot be dissociated from religion.

We also asked respondents their level of study (1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd or 4 th year), programme of study (Science or Humanities), household size, and the occupation of their parents, i.e., whether their parents work in the informal sector, formal sector or unemployed/retirees. The level and programme of study can influence the knowledge and perception of undergraduate students in Ghana as shown in studies from other countries [ 52 , 53 ]. Generally, students pursuing science and environment related programme are more knowledgeable and have a better perception of climate change than those pursuing Humanities programme [ 52 , 53 ]. Also, the higher the level of education, the more knowledgeable and the better the perception of people about climate change [ 54 , 55 ]. Therefore, we expected undergraduate student who are in the science programme and those at highest level (i.e., level 400 students) to be more knowledgeable and have better perception and attitude toward climate change.

According to [ 56 , 57 ], climate change knowledge and perception are associated with socioeconomic status. In both developing and developed countries, people’s perception about their socioeconomic status positively correlates with their environmental concern [ 57 ]. Wealthier people tend to have a better knowledge and greater concern about issues related to the environment and climate change than poor people [ 56 ]. We used parents’ level of education and employment status as a proxy for their socio-economic status. Parents with tertiary education and employment in the formal sector were considered to have “high socio-economic status, while those with no formal education and were unemployed were considered to have “low socio-economic status”. Household size has also been shown to influence individuals and households action on climate change, with individuals from small household size more likely to have higher mitigation performance and perceived mitigation efforts on climate change [ 58 ].

Section B had five questions to assess students’ basic knowledge on climate change, its causes and effects, as well as the sources from which they acquired the information. The questions asked in this section were basic facts about climate change that are unanimously agreed upon by IPCC and climate scientists globally. Section C evaluated the perception (which also mostly measured basic-, effects- and action-related-knowledge) of students about climate change using six questions. Finally, Section D, which had eight questions, evaluated students’ attitude towards climate change adaptation and mitigation. This section thus measured action-related knowledge of climate change and the respondents’ willingness to implement their action-related knowledge about climate change.

Study sample size determination

The sample size for this study was estimated using the online sample size calculator based on the Cochran formula. The population size of the undergraduate students at the time of the study (2019) was 15,167. Therefore, using a 95% confidence level, 4% precision and a worst case scenario of 50% of the respondents choosing the right answers, the minimum recommended sample size was estimated to be 577.

Sampling procedure

Students within the inclusive criteria, i.e., 1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd and 4 th year undergraduates were sampled using the convenience sampling method. The questionnaires were administered to students who were present in the lecture theatre during one of their main core subjects. The questionnaires were self-administered by the students in English and were received after they had completed them. Assuming a 70% return rate, we gave out 824 copies of the paper questionnaires in order to achieve the minimum acceptable sample size of 577.

Study variable measurements

The socio-demographic data were treated as the independent variables, whiles climate change knowledge, perception and attitude scores were considered as the dependent variables. A score of 1 was awarded to a correct (‘True’) answer, while a score of zero was awarded to incorrect (‘False’ or ‘Not Sure’) answer for the knowledge questions, giving a total score of 5 (100%). The respondents were said to have “very good-excellent” knowledge of climate change if they had a score of 90% and above, “adequate” knowledge of climate change if they scored from 75 to 89%, “average” knowledge of climate change if they scored 50 to 74% and “inadequate” or “poor” knowledge on climate change if they scored below 50%. For the perception, choosing ‘Agree’ gives a score of 1, while ‘Disagree’ and ‘Not sure’ attracted a score of 0, with a total score of 6 (100%). The respondents were said to have “very accurate” perception of climate change if they had a score of 90% and above, “accurate” perception of climate change if they scored from 75 to 89%, “fairly accurate” perception of climate change if they scored 50 to 74% and “in accurate” or “poor” perception of climate change if they scored below 50%. The maximum score for the attitude questions was 8 (100%) with a ‘Yes’ answer scoring 1 and a ‘No’ or ‘Not at all’ answer scoring 0. Again, the respondents were said to have “very good-excellent” attitude towards climate change if they had a score of 90% and above, “good” attitude towards climate change if they scored from 75 to 89%, “fairly good” attitude towards climate change if they scored 50 to 74% and “poor” attitude towards climate change if they scored below 50%.

Data analysis

Data obtained from the study was entered into Microsoft Excel and then analyzed with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS, Version 25) and R software. Frequencies with their percentages in Tables and Charts were used to represent descriptive statistics, while logistic regression, t-test and One-Way ANOVA at a confidence interval of 95% were used to determine the association between the respondents’ sociodemographic characteristics (independent variables) and their knowledge, perception and attitude towards climate change (dependent variables). Statistical significance was assumed when p ≤ 0.05.

Socio-demographic characteristics of respondents

Out of the 824 copies of the paper questionnaires given out to students to complete, 711 were filled out and returned, giving a return rate of 86.3%. After cleaning the data by removing incomplete and inconsistent responses, 620 completed questionnaires were retained for downstream analysis. Most of the respondents were offering programme in the Humanities (53.1%). Also, females (61.3%) and second year students (60%) formed majority of the respondents. Students of the Akan speaking ethnic group (59.7%), followers of the Christianity religion (95.8%) and living in households with between 5 and 7 persons (55.3%) were in the majority ( Table 1 ). Further, 46.8% of the respondents had their fathers working in the formal sectors, but the mothers of the majority (68.9%) of respondents were self-employed. In terms of education, the fathers of majority (56.8%) of the respondents had tertiary education, while 51.3% of the respondents’ mothers had secondary or vocational education ( Fig 1 ).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.g001

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.t001

Self-confessed adequacy of knowledge on climate change

The majority (93.5%) of the respondents claimed they had adequate knowledge about climate change and its causes, while only 6.5% said they were either unsure about their level of knowledge or had inadequate knowledge about climate change.

Sources of knowledge on climate change

School was the most important source of knowledge on climate change for 42.8% of the respondents, followed by radio and television (24.9%) and the internet (13.1%). The print media (7.4%) and other sources (0.6%) were the least common sources of information on climate change for the respondents ( Fig 2 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.g002

Students’ knowledge on climate change

Emission of Greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere being responsible for climate change (82.6%) and forests’ ability to reduce climate change by decreasing the amount of GHGs in the atmosphere (76.8%), were the top two best answered questions. Students were worst at knowing that carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ), and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) are all greenhouse gases (43.9%). The overall knowledge score of the students on climate change was 3.44 out of 5.0 or (68.8%), which is “average” ( Fig 3 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.g003

Association between socio-demographic characteristics and knowledge on climate change

Male students both in the Science programme and Humanities programme, were more knowledgeable on matters related to climate change than their female counterparts, although the difference was not significant (Overall male: female = 3.51: 3.40, p = 0.64; Science students male: female = 3.67: 3.56, p = 0.41; Humanities students male: female = 3.34: 3.27, p = 0.63). Also, students from the Mole-Dagbani ethnic group showed the highest knowledge about climate change, but this was not statistically significant compared to the other ethnic groups (3.54 vrs 3.27–3.49). Students of the Christian faith scored higher than those of other faiths (3.45 vrs 2.00–3.28) and those from households with more than seven members (3.50 vrs 3.40–3.45) exhibited better knowledge of climate change, but the differences were not statistically significant. The highest educational qualifications of both parents showed no association with the student’s knowledge of climate change, but in both cases, students whose parents had tertiary level of education were more knowledgeable [Mother (3.56 vrs 3.34–3.38); Father (3.49 vrs 3.34–3.37)]. The programme and the level of study of the students had significant associations with their knowledge of climate change issues. Students studying Science-based courses recorded better scores than their Humanities counterparts (3.61 vrs 3.29; p = 0.001), whereas final year students obtained the highest scores (4.37 vrs 3.36–3.57; p = 0.005). Students whose mothers and fathers were employed in the formal sector were more knowledgeable than those whose parents were unemployed or employed in the informal sector, but the difference was not statistically significant ( Table 1 ).

Regarding students’ response to each of the questions posed to assess their knowledge on climate change, the logistic regression analysis showed that gender had no significant influence on their knowledge of aspects of climate change ( S1 Table ). Also, none of the independent variables considered in this study was significantly associated with the respondents’ knowledge of the definition of climate change (KQ1) and the role trees play in modulating local climate (KQ5). However, the respondents’ programme of study, ethnicity, level of study, and mother’s level of education had significant influence on their knowledge concerning aspects of climate change. For example, the odds ratio (OR) of science students compared to students in the Humanities programme, knowing that emissions of GHGs into the atmosphere is responsible for anthropogenic climate change (KQ2) was 2.91 and this was significant at p-value of 0.001 (n = 534). Students of the Mole-Dagbani ethnic group were more likely to know that emissions of GHGs into the atmosphere is responsible for anthropogenic climate change, compared to students from Ga-Adangbe ethnic group (n = 534, Log odds LO = 1.45, OR = 4.27, p = 0.001). Also, the odds ratio of Level 400 (final year) students compared to Level 100 (first year) and Level 200 (second year) students, knowing that carbon dioxide is the principal greenhouse gas (KQ3) were 1.59 and 1.56, respectively, and these were significant at p-value of 0.05 (n = 533). Moreover, students whose mothers had secondary (n = 532, LO = 0.7, OR = 2.14, p = 0.03) or tertiary education (n = 533, LO = 1.12, Odds ratio = 3.04, p = 0.01), were more likely to know the greenhouse gases (KQ4) than those whose mothers had no formal education or had only primary education ( Table 2 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.t002

Students’ perception about climate change

The top two best perception about climate change exhibited by the students were about climate change being real (97.9%) and human activities being responsible for the 21 st century climate change (96.6%). The least perceived issue related to climate change by the students is on how climate change can increase the incidence of food-borne and water borne diseases, such as diarrhoea (52.9%, Fig 4 ). The overall score for student’s perception about climate change (mean ± standard deviation) was 5.04 ± 0.996 out of 6.0, which is 85.2%.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.g004

Association between socio-demographic characteristics and students’ overall perception about climate change

Overall, students with mothers (5.17 vrs 4.85–5.11, p > 0.05) in formal employment had a better perception of climate change than those with unemployed or informal sectors parents, but the differences were not statistically significant. Also, students whose fathers were unemployed had a better perception of climate change (5.33 vrs 5.05–5.16, p > 0.05) than those father were employed in the formal or informal sector, but the difference was not significant. Students of the Mole Dagbani ethnic group (5.32 vrs 5.02–5.12, p > 0.05) had the best perception of climate change among other ethnic groupings. Also, Christians (5.13 vrs 4.50–4.76, p > 0.05) were better than students of other faiths, but again, the difference was not statistically significant. The male students showed a better, but not significant perception of climate change than their female counterparts (5.12 vrs 5.11, p > 0.05).

Our study revealed that students in science programme had significantly better perception about climate change than students in Humanities (5.28 vrs 4.97; p = 0.001). Also, final year students exhibited the best and statistically significant perception about climate change than those in their 1 st , 2 nd or 3 rd year (5.63 vrs 4.95–5.17; p = 0.001). Students whose mothers attained tertiary level education had a better perception about climate change than those whose mothers had lower level or no education, but the difference was not significant (5.23 vrs 4.99–5.08; p > 0.05, Table 3 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.t003

The association between the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents and their perception about aspects of climate change is shown in Table 4 and S2 Table . The respondents’ level of study, household size, fathers’ occupation and fathers’ level of education had no significant influence on their perception towards aspects of climate change (i.e., the individual questions asked). However, their mother’s occupation and level of education significantly influenced their perception on whether anthropogenic climate change is real (PQ1). Students whose mothers were employed in the informal sector (n = 535, Log odds (LO) = 3.77, Odds ratio (OR) = 43.64, p = 0.019) and had tertiary education (n = 535, LO = 3.95, OD = 52.09, p = 0.02), were more likely to accept that climate change is real than those whose mothers were unemployed and only had primary education or no formal education. Also, students whose mothers were employed in the informal sector (n = 535, LO = 3.39, OR = 29.78, p = 0.019) and had tertiary education (n = 535, LO = 2.32, OD = 10.18, p = 0.02), were more likely to accept that human activities are responsible for climate change (PQ2) than those whose mothers were unemployed and had primary education or no formal education. The odds ratio of students who share the Christian faith compared to those of Islam, accepting that human activities are responsible for climate change was 0.06, and this was statistically significant at p-value of 0.01 ( Table 4 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.t004

Ethnicity influenced students’ perception on whether climate change will affect human health, food security and the environment (PQ3). The odds ratio of students of the Ga-Adangbe ethnic group compared to those of the Ewe ethnicity, believing that climate change will affect human health, food security and the environment was 0.22, and this was significant at p-value of 0.05. Also, the programme of study, ethnicity, and religion were strongly associated with students’ perception on whether climate change will increase the incidence of food- and water-borne diseases (PQ4). The odd ratio of students pursuing science programme compared to humanities students, in accepting that climate change will increase the incidence of food- and water-borne diseases was 2.02, which was significant at p-value of 0.001. Student of the Akan (n = 534, LO = 0.5, OD = 1.69, p = 0.041) and Mole-Dagbani (n = 534, LO = 1.10, OD = 3.01, p = 0.012) ethic groups were more likely to accept that climate change will increase the incidence of food- and water-borne diseases, and so were the students of the Christian faith compared to those of Islam (n = 534, LO = 1.43, OD = 0.24, p = 0.032). Students whose mothers had tertiary education were more likely to believe that climate change will increase the incidence of flooding, fire and drought (PQ5) than those whose mothers had primary education or no formal education (n = 534, LO = 1.27, OR = 3.59, p = 0.007).

More so, respondents’ gender, religion and mother’s level of education was strongly associated with the perception that education can play a key role in mitigating the effects of climate change (PQ6). Males were more likely to agree that education can play a key role in mitigating the effects of climate change (n = 534, LO = 0.89, OR = 2.44, p = 0.011), and were students of the Christian faith (n = 534, LO = 3.45, OR = 0.028, p = 0.037) compared to those of other religion (excluding Islam and Traditional religion), and those whose mother had tertiary education (n = 534, LO = 1.46, OR = 4.29, p = 0.028) compared to students whose mother had no formal education or had primary education ( Table 4 ).

Students’ attitude towards climate change issues

The overall score of the students’ attitude towards climate change issues was 6.12 over 8 or 76.5%. Questions to which students had attitude scores of more than 80% were; willingness to plant trees in order to reduce the impact of climate change (92.4%), preparedness to learn a lot more about climate change (86.7%) and being happy to reduce energy use in order to decrease the impacts of climate change (82.6%). Areas with attitude scores of less than 70% include willingness to join any climate change advocacy group (69.7%), willingness to take a climate change course as a free elective (65.8%) and readiness to use public transport in order to reduce the impacts of climate change (63.4%, Fig 5 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.g005

Association between socio-demographic characteristics and students’ attitude towards climate change issues

Overall, male students had a better attitude than their female counterparts (6.19 vrs 6.08, p > 0.05), but the difference was not statistically significant. Students of Mole-Dagbani ethnic origin had the best attitude towards climate change (6.22 vrs 5.78–6.21). Followers of the Christian faith had a significantly better attitude towards climate change issues than students of other faiths (6.15 vrs 3.25–5.95. p = 0.016). Occupation of parents of respondents had significant association with students’ attitudes towards climate change. Students with mothers in informal occupation had a significantly better attitude that those whose mothers were employed in the formal sector or were unemployed (6.20 vrs 5.25–6.08; p = 0.005). In contrast, students whose fathers were unemployed showed significantly better attitude than those whose fathers were employed either in the formal or informal sectors (6.50 vrs 6.08–6.17; p = 0.023). Respondents whose mothers (6.23 vrs 5.92–6.04, p > 0.05) and fathers (6.17 vrs 5.84–6.13, p > 0.05) had secondary/vocational education had the best attitude, but the differences were not significant. The level of education, i.e., either in first year, second year, third year or fourth year of study, did not have any significant influence on the respondents’ attitude towards climate change, although students in their final year of study had the best attitude scores (6.96 vrs 5.79–6.19, p > 0.05) ( Table 5 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.t005

In terms of the individual questions posed to evaluate students’ attitude towards climate change, the logistic regression analysis showed that the programme of study, household size, fathers’ level of education, fathers’ occupation and mothers’ level of education showed no significant association with the students’ response ( S3 Table ). However, the respondents’ gender, religion, ethnicity, level of study and mothers’ occupation significantly influenced their attitude towards aspects of climate change mitigation measures ( Table 6 ). For example, students whose mothers were employed in the formal sector (n = 532, LO = 2.23, OR = 9.29, p = 0.01) and informal sector (n = 532, LO = 2.16, OR = 7.14, p = 0.01) were more willing to learn more about climate change (AQ1) than those whose mothers were unemployed. Also, male students were more in agreement than females (n = 533, LO = 0.49, that the study of climate change should be made mandatory for undergraduate students (AQ3). The religious affiliations and level of study of the respondents significantly influenced their willingness to join climate change advocacy groups (AQ4), with Christians more willing to join such groups compared to those of the Islamic faith (n = 532, LO = 1.15, OR = 0.32, p = 0.04). First year students were also less willing to join climate change advocacy groups than final year students (n = 532, LO = 1.6, OR = 0.2, p = 0.02).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.t006

Female students (n = 534, LO = 0.9, OR = 0.41, p = 0.04) and students of the Ewe ethnic group compared to those of the Ga-Adangbe ethnicity (n = 534, LO = 3.01, OR = 20.2, p = 0.02), were more willing to plant trees to modulate the local climate. Also, students of the Akan, Ewe and Mole-Dagbani ethnic groups, compared to Ga-Adangbe students, were more willing to pay for cleaner source of energy in order to reduce their carbon footprint (Akan: n = 534, LO = 0.9, OR = 2.49, p < 0.001; Ewe: n = 534, LO = 0.94, OR = 2.57, p = 0.02; Mole-Dagbani: n = 534, LO = 1.03, OR = 2.79, p = 0.05). So also were students in their final year compared to those in their third year of study (n = 534, LO = 2.43, OR = 0.09, p = 0.03), as well as students whose mothers were employed compared to those whose mothers were unemployed (mothers employed in the formal sector: n = 534, Lo = 2.0, OR = 7.42, p = 0.02; mothers employed in the informal sector: n = 534, LO = 1.98, OR = 7.22, p = 0.01, Table 6 ).

Self-confessed and actual adequacy of climate change knowledge

Over the last two decades a vast body of literature has emerged that highlights how human activities since the industrial revolution has significantly altered global climate systems. Although the issue of climate change has recently received high publicity globally, many people still have inadequate knowledge and misconceptions about the subject. A better understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change is required for citizens to participation in the democratic discourse concerning this all-important environmental issue [ 27 , 45 ]. When individuals and communities are well-informed about climate change issues, they can positively contribute to the development of their communities by adopting climate smart behaviours and practices [ 21 ]. Consequently, inadequate knowledge and misunderstanding about climate change could be a major barrier to its mitigation and adaptation [ 46 ].

The present study evaluated the knowledge, perception and attitude of climate change of undergraduate students in the University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana. Our data revealed that overall, undergraduate students in the University of Ghana had average (66.9%) knowledge about climate change and its causes, albeit majority (92%) of the respondents self-confessing that they have adequate (75–89%) knowledge of climate change. Interestingly, but disappointingly, only 41.5% of the respondents knew that carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ), and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) are all greenhouse gases. Also, as high as 34% of the respondents were not aware that CO 2 is the principal greenhouse gas. Although majority (≥ 95%) of the respondents expressed concern about climate change, more than half (52%) of the respondents did not believe that climate change can increase the incidence of food and water borne diseases such as diarrhoea. These clearly underscore their lack of accurate basic knowledge and understanding of the causes and effects of climate change on human health and wellbeing. The over-exaggeration of their self-confessed climate change knowledge can have detrimental implications on their behaviour and actions to addressing the challenge of climate change.

These findings are in agreement with the outcome of other studies, for instance, it has been found that 40% of college students in their sample group were unaware that CO 2 is a greenhouse gas [ 59 ]. Similarly, [ 60 ] found that 35% of college students did not recognize carbon dioxide as a greenhouse. Also, [ 61 ] found that only 29.08% of university student who are prospective primary teachers correctly named carbon dioxide as the main greenhouse gas, and only few could name other greenhouse gases such as methane, water vapor, or CFCs. In their study of Middle school student’s perception of climate change at Boyolali District, Indonesia, [ 62 ] noted that over 50% of the respondents did not know greenhouse gases and only 43% knew that carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapour are greenhouse gases. [ 34 ] noted that a high percentage of the Ghanaian public did not have a clear understanding of climate change.

High school was the most important source of climate change education for 50% of the respondents in the present study, followed by radio and television (24.8%) and the internet (13.1%). Indeed, society’s knowledge and opinions of climate change feed on information from school and various media sources. The information about climate change that is given in schools originates from the field of science and is therefore more credible. However, the information from various media platforms may not originate from the field of science and therefore may be inaccurate [ 46 ]. Given that school was the most important source of climate change education for the majority of the respondent, we expected that their climate change knowledge will be at least adequate, but this was not so. This suggests that the climate change education at the pre-tertiary level is either inadequate or not effectively taught. In fact, a study evaluating the role of selected science curricula in climate change education of pre-tertiary education in Ghana revealed that the curriculum for primary, Grades 1 to 3 (age = 6–9 years) and integrated science curriculum of primary, Grades 4 to 6 (age = 9–12 years) had no climate change content [ 63 ]. Only the integrated science syllabuses of the junior and senior high schools had climate change content [ 63 ]. The study also claimed that the teaching and learning methods for climate change were inadequate and ineffective [ 63 ]. Indeed, a recent study by [ 64 ] showed lack of basic knowledge and understanding of climate change even at the teacher trainee level. The teacher trainees are individuals being trained at the Training Colleges to equip them to teach at the pre-tertiary level in Ghana. This situation may not be peculiar to Ghana, as pre-tertiary teachers’ misconceptions and inadequate knowledge about climate change have been revealed by studies from other countries [ 61 , 65 , 66 ].

Climate change knowledge, perception, attitude, and their influential factors

In terms of the association between demographic factors and climate change knowledge, attitude and perception, respondents who were of the Christian faith and those from households with 5 to 7 members had better knowledge, attitude and perception about climate change. This observation could be an artifact of sampling because these categories were in the majority. For instance, Christians formed 94.4% of the respondents, while those from households with five to seven members formed 54.8%. Although males (40.8%), Science students (38.2%), final year students (4.5%) and respondents from the Mole Dagbani (6.8%) and Ewe (13.7%) ethnic groups were in the minority, they had better knowledge, attitude and perception about climate change.

Gender has been recognized as an important predictor of climate change knowledge and perception [ 27 ]. Indeed, many studies have demonstrated the variation of perception about environmental issues and climate change between men and women, with men exhibiting more accurate knowledge and perception about climate change than women [ 43 , 44 ]. In general, most women expressed lesser confidence in their science and math abilities and tend to underestimate their climate change knowledge [ 38 ]. Yet, in many countries women hold stronger attitudes, tend to be more concerned and engage more in environmental issues and climate change than men [ 40 , 57 , 59 , 60 ]. In developed countries such as USA, UK and Germany, women conveyed greater knowledge and concern about climate change than men [ 61 , 67 ]. A recent global study suggested that in wealthier industrialized countries, women tend to be more concerned about climate change [ 63 ]. However, in Ethiopia, a developing country in East Africa, a higher percentage of women were more aware of climate changes [ 68 ]. Thus, our data and the global literature suggest that the factors driving gender inequalities in climate change knowledge and perception are complex and multifaceted.

We found that the programme of study (Science or Humanities) and level of educational (Level 100, 200, 300, or 400) influenced the accuracy of climate change knowledge and perception. As expected, students pursuing science programme and final year students were more knowledgeable about climate change. Students pursuing Humanity/Arts programme may be apathetic about science and its related disciplines, such as climate change. Also, the course content of most of the subjects taught in the Humanities may not have much climate change content. Indeed, an analysis of the content of undergraduate programme in the University of Ghana revealed that there is very limited climate change courses even in the science programme [ 52 ]. For example, there was no environmental and climate change related content in the courses taught at the Business, Law, Arts, Agriculture and Consumer Science, Allied and Health Sciences programme. Only 10 and 13 courses in the Social Sciences and Basic and Applied Sciences, respectively, had environmental and climate change related content. These findings are in agreement with the outcome of other studies from across the world, showing that students with a science background are more likely to have a better understanding of climate change. For instance, [ 69 ] found that among Nigerian university graduates, students pursuing environmental sciences had more class experience on climate change than those in other disciplines. A study at a South African university found that science and agriculture students had a better understanding of climate change than health science students [ 36 ]. In the United States, science, agriculture, and natural resources teachers had a deeper understanding of climate change than engineering, business, and management teachers [ 61 ].

The level of education has also been identified as one of the most important predictors of people’s awareness about climate change [ 27 , 54 , 55 ]. Consequently, it was not surprising that the final year students had a better knowledge, attitude and perception about climate change. The fact that the final year students had a better understanding of climate change suggested that the climate change content of the undergraduate programme is little, and are mostly taught during the final year. Indeed, an analysis of the content of undergraduate programme in the University of Ghana revealed that there is very limited climate change courses even in the science programme [ 52 ].

It was interesting to note that the respondents from the Mole Dagbani ethnic group had a better knowledge, attitude, and perception about climate change, even though they were in the minority. Indeed, recent studies show that personal experience play a role in the knowledge, attitude and perception of climate change [ 55 ]. People with a long history of interaction with their environment, have developed intricate and complex systems of first-hand knowledge of the weather, climate change and climate variability. The climate where the Mole-Dagbani ethnic resides in the most arid and vulnerable to climate change. These people are mostly yam, cereals, vegetable, and livestock farmers and currently experiencing unprecedented prolong dry season and short rainy season which are impacting negatively on their water bodies, farming, and socio-economic systems. Also, because the northern part of Ghana is the most vulnerable to climate change, most of the NGOs involved in climate change and adaptation education and awareness creation are based in communities in northern Ghana and their work seems to be having a positive impact on the climate change knowledge, attitude, and perception of the local people.

Our data suggested that respondents from high socio-economic background (parents had tertiary education and were employed in the formal sector) had a better knowledge and perception about climate change than those from low socio-economic background (parents had no formal education and were unemployed). This supports the proposition that knowledge about climate change is associated with socioeconomic status and that wealthier people have a better knowledge and greater concern about issues related to the environment [ 57 ]. In both less developed and developed countries, people’s perception about their socioeconomic status positively correlates with environmental concern [ 56 ]. Among European populations, [ 57 ] found that climate change denial and uncertainty are more common in individuals who feel insecure about their economic future, and in more rural and less prosperous regions. Also, [ 70 ] found that in Lao People’s Democratic Republic households, participants’ knowledge about climate change was significantly associated with their socioeconomic status.

Conclusion and recommendations

Our study contributes to the scant literature on climate change knowledge and perception in sub-Saharan Africa. More importantly, it highlights the knowledge gaps in climate change science among undergraduate students in the University of Ghana, Legon. Our findings have broader implications for further research and policy recommendations. Given that climate change education is an essential element in the global approach to solving the climate change challenge, our findings underscore the urgent need to intensify climate change education and awareness creation among undergraduate students in Ghana and the Ghanaian public at large. We call on the Ministry of Education of Ghana to take steps to integrate climate change science into the primary, high school and university education curricula for both science and non-science programme. The teaching and learning of climate change in the schools should be participatory, interdisciplinary, creative, and affect-driven.

Teachers should be well trained in climate science and during the teaching and learning process, they should highlight the causal linkages between climate change and the little things that the students do on a daily basis. Various environment-related student clubs should include climate change in their discourse and where such clubs are non-existent, their establishment should be encouraged. Climate change-related organisations are also encouraged to increase their public engagement, especially in schools. Community education should involve partnerships between various public and private stakeholders, such as the local councils, universities, NGOs, resource management bodies and community groups. The mass media has been shown to have strong effect on people’s perception and attitudes towards climate change, and could play a pivotal role in climate change education and awareness creation in Ghana.

This is study used a cross-sectional approach and therefore suffered from the limitations of a cross-sectional study. Although our findings are only statistically representative for the selected students, we assumed that the participants are qualitatively representative of the larger undergraduate students in Ghana. We made wider inferences based on this assumption, which may not necessarily be so. Given that the participants in this study may not be qualitatively representative of the larger undergraduate students in Ghana, further studies should be conducted across many of the countries universities in order to get a better picture of the climate change knowledge, perception and attitude of undergraduate students in Ghana.

Supporting information

S1 text. questionnaire on climate change knowledge, perception and attitude of undergraduate students..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.s001

S1 Table. Association between the sociodemographic characteristics of the students and their knowledge of each of the climate change questions KQ1-KQ5 posed (n = sample size).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.s002

S2 Table. Association between the sociodemographic characteristics of the students and their perception towards each of the climate change questions PQ1-PQ6 posed (n = sample size).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.s003

S3 Table. Association between the sociodemographic characteristics of the students and their attitude towards each of the climate change questions AQ1-AQ8 posed (n = sample size).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000215.s004

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge all the lecturers who gave us part of their lecture time to distribute the questionnaires to the students. We also thank all the research assistants who supported this research, particularly John Bosu Mensah and Hellen Sedem Addom.

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A review of the global climate change impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures

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• Kashif Abbass 1 ,
• Muhammad Zeeshan Qasim 2 ,
• Huaming Song 1 ,
• Muntasir Murshed   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9872-8742 3 , 4 ,
• Haider Mahmood   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6474-4338 5 &
• Ijaz Younis 1  

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Climate change is a long-lasting change in the weather arrays across tropics to polls. It is a global threat that has embarked on to put stress on various sectors. This study is aimed to conceptually engineer how climate variability is deteriorating the sustainability of diverse sectors worldwide. Specifically, the agricultural sector’s vulnerability is a globally concerning scenario, as sufficient production and food supplies are threatened due to irreversible weather fluctuations. In turn, it is challenging the global feeding patterns, particularly in countries with agriculture as an integral part of their economy and total productivity. Climate change has also put the integrity and survival of many species at stake due to shifts in optimum temperature ranges, thereby accelerating biodiversity loss by progressively changing the ecosystem structures. Climate variations increase the likelihood of particular food and waterborne and vector-borne diseases, and a recent example is a coronavirus pandemic. Climate change also accelerates the enigma of antimicrobial resistance, another threat to human health due to the increasing incidence of resistant pathogenic infections. Besides, the global tourism industry is devastated as climate change impacts unfavorable tourism spots. The methodology investigates hypothetical scenarios of climate variability and attempts to describe the quality of evidence to facilitate readers’ careful, critical engagement. Secondary data is used to identify sustainability issues such as environmental, social, and economic viability. To better understand the problem, gathered the information in this report from various media outlets, research agencies, policy papers, newspapers, and other sources. This review is a sectorial assessment of climate change mitigation and adaptation approaches worldwide in the aforementioned sectors and the associated economic costs. According to the findings, government involvement is necessary for the country’s long-term development through strict accountability of resources and regulations implemented in the past to generate cutting-edge climate policy. Therefore, mitigating the impacts of climate change must be of the utmost importance, and hence, this global threat requires global commitment to address its dreadful implications to ensure global sustenance.

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Introduction

Worldwide observed and anticipated climatic changes for the twenty-first century and global warming are significant global changes that have been encountered during the past 65 years. Climate change (CC) is an inter-governmental complex challenge globally with its influence over various components of the ecological, environmental, socio-political, and socio-economic disciplines (Adger et al.  2005 ; Leal Filho et al.  2021 ; Feliciano et al.  2022 ). Climate change involves heightened temperatures across numerous worlds (Battisti and Naylor  2009 ; Schuurmans  2021 ; Weisheimer and Palmer  2005 ; Yadav et al.  2015 ). With the onset of the industrial revolution, the problem of earth climate was amplified manifold (Leppänen et al.  2014 ). It is reported that the immediate attention and due steps might increase the probability of overcoming its devastating impacts. It is not plausible to interpret the exact consequences of climate change (CC) on a sectoral basis (Izaguirre et al.  2021 ; Jurgilevich et al.  2017 ), which is evident by the emerging level of recognition plus the inclusion of climatic uncertainties at both local and national level of policymaking (Ayers et al.  2014 ).

Climate change is characterized based on the comprehensive long-haul temperature and precipitation trends and other components such as pressure and humidity level in the surrounding environment. Besides, the irregular weather patterns, retreating of global ice sheets, and the corresponding elevated sea level rise are among the most renowned international and domestic effects of climate change (Lipczynska-Kochany  2018 ; Michel et al.  2021 ; Murshed and Dao 2020 ). Before the industrial revolution, natural sources, including volcanoes, forest fires, and seismic activities, were regarded as the distinct sources of greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as CO 2 , CH 4 , N 2 O, and H 2 O into the atmosphere (Murshed et al. 2020 ; Hussain et al.  2020 ; Sovacool et al.  2021 ; Usman and Balsalobre-Lorente 2022 ; Murshed 2022 ). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) struck a major agreement to tackle climate change and accelerate and intensify the actions and investments required for a sustainable low-carbon future at Conference of the Parties (COP-21) in Paris on December 12, 2015. The Paris Agreement expands on the Convention by bringing all nations together for the first time in a single cause to undertake ambitious measures to prevent climate change and adapt to its impacts, with increased funding to assist developing countries in doing so. As so, it marks a turning point in the global climate fight. The core goal of the Paris Agreement is to improve the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise this century well below 2 °C over pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5° C (Sharma et al. 2020 ; Sharif et al. 2020 ; Chien et al. 2021 .

Furthermore, the agreement aspires to strengthen nations’ ability to deal with the effects of climate change and align financing flows with low GHG emissions and climate-resilient paths (Shahbaz et al. 2019 ; Anwar et al. 2021 ; Usman et al. 2022a ). To achieve these lofty goals, adequate financial resources must be mobilized and provided, as well as a new technology framework and expanded capacity building, allowing developing countries and the most vulnerable countries to act under their respective national objectives. The agreement also establishes a more transparent action and support mechanism. All Parties are required by the Paris Agreement to do their best through “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the coming years (Balsalobre-Lorente et al. 2020 ). It includes obligations that all Parties regularly report on their emissions and implementation activities. A global stock-take will be conducted every five years to review collective progress toward the agreement’s goal and inform the Parties’ future individual actions. The Paris Agreement became available for signature on April 22, 2016, Earth Day, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. On November 4, 2016, it went into effect 30 days after the so-called double threshold was met (ratification by 55 nations accounting for at least 55% of world emissions). More countries have ratified and continue to ratify the agreement since then, bringing 125 Parties in early 2017. To fully operationalize the Paris Agreement, a work program was initiated in Paris to define mechanisms, processes, and recommendations on a wide range of concerns (Murshed et al. 2021 ). Since 2016, Parties have collaborated in subsidiary bodies (APA, SBSTA, and SBI) and numerous formed entities. The Conference of the Parties functioning as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) convened for the first time in November 2016 in Marrakesh in conjunction with COP22 and made its first two resolutions. The work plan is scheduled to be finished by 2018. Some mitigation and adaptation strategies to reduce the emission in the prospective of Paris agreement are following firstly, a long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, secondly, to aim to limit the rise to 1.5 °C, since this would significantly reduce risks and the impacts of climate change, thirdly, on the need for global emissions to peak as soon as possible, recognizing that this will take longer for developing countries, lastly, to undertake rapid reductions after that under the best available science, to achieve a balance between emissions and removals in the second half of the century. On the other side, some adaptation strategies are; strengthening societies’ ability to deal with the effects of climate change and to continue & expand international assistance for developing nations’ adaptation.

However, anthropogenic activities are currently regarded as most accountable for CC (Murshed et al. 2022 ). Apart from the industrial revolution, other anthropogenic activities include excessive agricultural operations, which further involve the high use of fuel-based mechanization, burning of agricultural residues, burning fossil fuels, deforestation, national and domestic transportation sectors, etc. (Huang et al.  2016 ). Consequently, these anthropogenic activities lead to climatic catastrophes, damaging local and global infrastructure, human health, and total productivity. Energy consumption has mounted GHGs levels concerning warming temperatures as most of the energy production in developing countries comes from fossil fuels (Balsalobre-Lorente et al. 2022 ; Usman et al. 2022b ; Abbass et al. 2021a ; Ishikawa-Ishiwata and Furuya  2022 ).

This review aims to highlight the effects of climate change in a socio-scientific aspect by analyzing the existing literature on various sectorial pieces of evidence globally that influence the environment. Although this review provides a thorough examination of climate change and its severe affected sectors that pose a grave danger for global agriculture, biodiversity, health, economy, forestry, and tourism, and to purpose some practical prophylactic measures and mitigation strategies to be adapted as sound substitutes to survive from climate change (CC) impacts. The societal implications of irregular weather patterns and other effects of climate changes are discussed in detail. Some numerous sustainable mitigation measures and adaptation practices and techniques at the global level are discussed in this review with an in-depth focus on its economic, social, and environmental aspects. Methods of data collection section are included in the supplementary information.

Review methodology

Related study and its objectives.

Today, we live an ordinary life in the beautiful digital, globalized world where climate change has a decisive role. What happens in one country has a massive influence on geographically far apart countries, which points to the current crisis known as COVID-19 (Sarkar et al.  2021 ). The most dangerous disease like COVID-19 has affected the world’s climate changes and economic conditions (Abbass et al. 2022 ; Pirasteh-Anosheh et al.  2021 ). The purpose of the present study is to review the status of research on the subject, which is based on “Global Climate Change Impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures” by systematically reviewing past published and unpublished research work. Furthermore, the current study seeks to comment on research on the same topic and suggest future research on the same topic. Specifically, the present study aims: The first one is, organize publications to make them easy and quick to find. Secondly, to explore issues in this area, propose an outline of research for future work. The third aim of the study is to synthesize the previous literature on climate change, various sectors, and their mitigation measurement. Lastly , classify the articles according to the different methods and procedures that have been adopted.

Review methodology for reviewers

This review-based article followed systematic literature review techniques that have proved the literature review as a rigorous framework (Benita  2021 ; Tranfield et al.  2003 ). Moreover, we illustrate in Fig.  1 the search method that we have started for this research. First, finalized the research theme to search literature (Cooper et al.  2018 ). Second, used numerous research databases to search related articles and download from the database (Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scopus Index Journals, Emerald, Elsevier Science Direct, Springer, and Sciverse). We focused on various articles, with research articles, feedback pieces, short notes, debates, and review articles published in scholarly journals. Reports used to search for multiple keywords such as “Climate Change,” “Mitigation and Adaptation,” “Department of Agriculture and Human Health,” “Department of Biodiversity and Forestry,” etc.; in summary, keyword list and full text have been made. Initially, the search for keywords yielded a large amount of literature.

Source : constructed by authors

Methodology search for finalized articles for investigations.

Since 2020, it has been impossible to review all the articles found; some restrictions have been set for the literature exhibition. The study searched 95 articles on a different database mentioned above based on the nature of the study. It excluded 40 irrelevant papers due to copied from a previous search after readings tiles, abstract and full pieces. The criteria for inclusion were: (i) articles focused on “Global Climate Change Impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures,” and (ii) the search key terms related to study requirements. The complete procedure yielded 55 articles for our study. We repeat our search on the “Web of Science and Google Scholars” database to enhance the search results and check the referenced articles.

In this study, 55 articles are reviewed systematically and analyzed for research topics and other aspects, such as the methods, contexts, and theories used in these studies. Furthermore, this study analyzes closely related areas to provide unique research opportunities in the future. The study also discussed future direction opportunities and research questions by understanding the research findings climate changes and other affected sectors. The reviewed paper framework analysis process is outlined in Fig.  2 .

Framework of the analysis Process.

Natural disasters and climate change’s socio-economic consequences

Natural and environmental disasters can be highly variable from year to year; some years pass with very few deaths before a significant disaster event claims many lives (Symanski et al.  2021 ). Approximately 60,000 people globally died from natural disasters each year on average over the past decade (Ritchie and Roser  2014 ; Wiranata and Simbolon  2021 ). So, according to the report, around 0.1% of global deaths. Annual variability in the number and share of deaths from natural disasters in recent decades are shown in Fig.  3 . The number of fatalities can be meager—sometimes less than 10,000, and as few as 0.01% of all deaths. But shock events have a devastating impact: the 1983–1985 famine and drought in Ethiopia; the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami; Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar in 2008; and the 2010 Port-au-Prince earthquake in Haiti and now recent example is COVID-19 pandemic (Erman et al.  2021 ). These events pushed global disaster deaths to over 200,000—more than 0.4% of deaths in these years. Low-frequency, high-impact events such as earthquakes and tsunamis are not preventable, but such high losses of human life are. Historical evidence shows that earlier disaster detection, more robust infrastructure, emergency preparedness, and response programmers have substantially reduced disaster deaths worldwide. Low-income is also the most vulnerable to disasters; improving living conditions, facilities, and response services in these areas would be critical in reducing natural disaster deaths in the coming decades.

Source EMDAT ( 2020 )

Global deaths from natural disasters, 1978 to 2020.

The interior regions of the continent are likely to be impacted by rising temperatures (Dimri et al.  2018 ; Goes et al.  2020 ; Mannig et al.  2018 ; Schuurmans  2021 ). Weather patterns change due to the shortage of natural resources (water), increase in glacier melting, and rising mercury are likely to cause extinction to many planted species (Gampe et al.  2016 ; Mihiretu et al.  2021 ; Shaffril et al.  2018 ).On the other hand, the coastal ecosystem is on the verge of devastation (Perera et al.  2018 ; Phillips  2018 ). The temperature rises, insect disease outbreaks, health-related problems, and seasonal and lifestyle changes are persistent, with a strong probability of these patterns continuing in the future (Abbass et al. 2021c ; Hussain et al.  2018 ). At the global level, a shortage of good infrastructure and insufficient adaptive capacity are hammering the most (IPCC  2013 ). In addition to the above concerns, a lack of environmental education and knowledge, outdated consumer behavior, a scarcity of incentives, a lack of legislation, and the government’s lack of commitment to climate change contribute to the general public’s concerns. By 2050, a 2 to 3% rise in mercury and a drastic shift in rainfall patterns may have serious consequences (Huang et al. 2022 ; Gorst et al.  2018 ). Natural and environmental calamities caused huge losses globally, such as decreased agriculture outputs, rehabilitation of the system, and rebuilding necessary technologies (Ali and Erenstein  2017 ; Ramankutty et al.  2018 ; Yu et al.  2021 ) (Table 1 ). Furthermore, in the last 3 or 4 years, the world has been plagued by smog-related eye and skin diseases, as well as a rise in road accidents due to poor visibility.

Climate change and agriculture

Global agriculture is the ultimate sector responsible for 30–40% of all greenhouse emissions, which makes it a leading industry predominantly contributing to climate warming and significantly impacted by it (Grieg; Mishra et al.  2021 ; Ortiz et al.  2021 ; Thornton and Lipper  2014 ). Numerous agro-environmental and climatic factors that have a dominant influence on agriculture productivity (Pautasso et al.  2012 ) are significantly impacted in response to precipitation extremes including floods, forest fires, and droughts (Huang  2004 ). Besides, the immense dependency on exhaustible resources also fuels the fire and leads global agriculture to become prone to devastation. Godfray et al. ( 2010 ) mentioned that decline in agriculture challenges the farmer’s quality of life and thus a significant factor to poverty as the food and water supplies are critically impacted by CC (Ortiz et al.  2021 ; Rosenzweig et al.  2014 ). As an essential part of the economic systems, especially in developing countries, agricultural systems affect the overall economy and potentially the well-being of households (Schlenker and Roberts  2009 ). According to the report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, i.e., CH 4, CO 2 , and N 2 O, are increased in the air to extraordinary levels over the last few centuries (Usman and Makhdum 2021 ; Stocker et al.  2013 ). Climate change is the composite outcome of two different factors. The first is the natural causes, and the second is the anthropogenic actions (Karami 2012 ). It is also forecasted that the world may experience a typical rise in temperature stretching from 1 to 3.7 °C at the end of this century (Pachauri et al. 2014 ). The world’s crop production is also highly vulnerable to these global temperature-changing trends as raised temperatures will pose severe negative impacts on crop growth (Reidsma et al. 2009 ). Some of the recent modeling about the fate of global agriculture is briefly described below.

Decline in cereal productivity

Crop productivity will also be affected dramatically in the next few decades due to variations in integral abiotic factors such as temperature, solar radiation, precipitation, and CO 2 . These all factors are included in various regulatory instruments like progress and growth, weather-tempted changes, pest invasions (Cammell and Knight 1992 ), accompanying disease snags (Fand et al. 2012 ), water supplies (Panda et al. 2003 ), high prices of agro-products in world’s agriculture industry, and preeminent quantity of fertilizer consumption. Lobell and field ( 2007 ) claimed that from 1962 to 2002, wheat crop output had condensed significantly due to rising temperatures. Therefore, during 1980–2011, the common wheat productivity trends endorsed extreme temperature events confirmed by Gourdji et al. ( 2013 ) around South Asia, South America, and Central Asia. Various other studies (Asseng, Cao, Zhang, and Ludwig 2009 ; Asseng et al. 2013 ; García et al. 2015 ; Ortiz et al. 2021 ) also proved that wheat output is negatively affected by the rising temperatures and also caused adverse effects on biomass productivity (Calderini et al. 1999 ; Sadras and Slafer 2012 ). Hereafter, the rice crop is also influenced by the high temperatures at night. These difficulties will worsen because the temperature will be rising further in the future owing to CC (Tebaldi et al. 2006 ). Another research conducted in China revealed that a 4.6% of rice production per 1 °C has happened connected with the advancement in night temperatures (Tao et al. 2006 ). Moreover, the average night temperature growth also affected rice indicia cultivar’s output pragmatically during 25 years in the Philippines (Peng et al. 2004 ). It is anticipated that the increase in world average temperature will also cause a substantial reduction in yield (Hatfield et al. 2011 ; Lobell and Gourdji 2012 ). In the southern hemisphere, Parry et al. ( 2007 ) noted a rise of 1–4 °C in average daily temperatures at the end of spring season unti the middle of summers, and this raised temperature reduced crop output by cutting down the time length for phenophases eventually reduce the yield (Hatfield and Prueger 2015 ; R. Ortiz 2008 ). Also, world climate models have recommended that humid and subtropical regions expect to be plentiful prey to the upcoming heat strokes (Battisti and Naylor 2009 ). Grain production is the amalgamation of two constituents: the average weight and the grain output/m 2 , however, in crop production. Crop output is mainly accredited to the grain quantity (Araus et al. 2008 ; Gambín and Borrás 2010 ). In the times of grain set, yield resources are mainly strewn between hitherto defined components, i.e., grain usual weight and grain output, which presents a trade-off between them (Gambín and Borrás 2010 ) beside disparities in per grain integration (B. L. Gambín et al. 2006 ). In addition to this, the maize crop is also susceptible to raised temperatures, principally in the flowering stage (Edreira and Otegui 2013 ). In reality, the lower grain number is associated with insufficient acclimatization due to intense photosynthesis and higher respiration and the high-temperature effect on the reproduction phenomena (Edreira and Otegui 2013 ). During the flowering phase, maize visible to heat (30–36 °C) seemed less anthesis-silking intermissions (Edreira et al. 2011 ). Another research by Dupuis and Dumas ( 1990 ) proved that a drop in spikelet when directly visible to high temperatures above 35 °C in vitro pollination. Abnormalities in kernel number claimed by Vega et al. ( 2001 ) is related to conceded plant development during a flowering phase that is linked with the active ear growth phase and categorized as a critical phase for approximation of kernel number during silking (Otegui and Bonhomme 1998 ).

The retort of rice output to high temperature presents disparities in flowering patterns, and seed set lessens and lessens grain weight (Qasim et al. 2020 ; Qasim, Hammad, Maqsood, Tariq, & Chawla). During the daytime, heat directly impacts flowers which lessens the thesis period and quickens the earlier peak flowering (Tao et al. 2006 ). Antagonistic effect of higher daytime temperature d on pollen sprouting proposed seed set decay, whereas, seed set was lengthily reduced than could be explicated by pollen growing at high temperatures 40◦C (Matsui et al. 2001 ).

The decline in wheat output is linked with higher temperatures, confirmed in numerous studies (Semenov 2009 ; Stone and Nicolas 1994 ). High temperatures fast-track the arrangements of plant expansion (Blum et al. 2001 ), diminution photosynthetic process (Salvucci and Crafts‐Brandner 2004 ), and also considerably affect the reproductive operations (Farooq et al. 2011 ).

The destructive impacts of CC induced weather extremes to deteriorate the integrity of crops (Chaudhary et al. 2011 ), e.g., Spartan cold and extreme fog cause falling and discoloration of betel leaves (Rosenzweig et al. 2001 ), giving them a somehow reddish appearance, squeezing of lemon leaves (Pautasso et al. 2012 ), as well as root rot of pineapple, have reported (Vedwan and Rhoades 2001 ). Henceforth, in tackling the disruptive effects of CC, several short-term and long-term management approaches are the crucial need of time (Fig.  4 ). Moreover, various studies (Chaudhary et al. 2011 ; Patz et al. 2005 ; Pautasso et al. 2012 ) have demonstrated adapting trends such as ameliorating crop diversity can yield better adaptability towards CC.

Schematic description of potential impacts of climate change on the agriculture sector and the appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures to overcome its impact.

Climate change impacts on biodiversity

Global biodiversity is among the severe victims of CC because it is the fastest emerging cause of species loss. Studies demonstrated that the massive scale species dynamics are considerably associated with diverse climatic events (Abraham and Chain 1988 ; Manes et al. 2021 ; A. M. D. Ortiz et al. 2021 ). Both the pace and magnitude of CC are altering the compatible habitat ranges for living entities of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial regions. Alterations in general climate regimes influence the integrity of ecosystems in numerous ways, such as variation in the relative abundance of species, range shifts, changes in activity timing, and microhabitat use (Bates et al. 2014 ). The geographic distribution of any species often depends upon its ability to tolerate environmental stresses, biological interactions, and dispersal constraints. Hence, instead of the CC, the local species must only accept, adapt, move, or face extinction (Berg et al. 2010 ). So, the best performer species have a better survival capacity for adjusting to new ecosystems or a decreased perseverance to survive where they are already situated (Bates et al. 2014 ). An important aspect here is the inadequate habitat connectivity and access to microclimates, also crucial in raising the exposure to climate warming and extreme heatwave episodes. For example, the carbon sequestration rates are undergoing fluctuations due to climate-driven expansion in the range of global mangroves (Cavanaugh et al. 2014 ).

Similarly, the loss of kelp-forest ecosystems in various regions and its occupancy by the seaweed turfs has set the track for elevated herbivory by the high influx of tropical fish populations. Not only this, the increased water temperatures have exacerbated the conditions far away from the physiological tolerance level of the kelp communities (Vergés et al. 2016 ; Wernberg et al. 2016 ). Another pertinent danger is the devastation of keystone species, which even has more pervasive effects on the entire communities in that habitat (Zarnetske et al. 2012 ). It is particularly important as CC does not specify specific populations or communities. Eventually, this CC-induced redistribution of species may deteriorate carbon storage and the net ecosystem productivity (Weed et al. 2013 ). Among the typical disruptions, the prominent ones include impacts on marine and terrestrial productivity, marine community assembly, and the extended invasion of toxic cyanobacteria bloom (Fossheim et al. 2015 ).

The CC-impacted species extinction is widely reported in the literature (Beesley et al. 2019 ; Urban 2015 ), and the predictions of demise until the twenty-first century are dreadful (Abbass et al. 2019 ; Pereira et al. 2013 ). In a few cases, northward shifting of species may not be formidable as it allows mountain-dwelling species to find optimum climates. However, the migrant species may be trapped in isolated and incompatible habitats due to losing topography and range (Dullinger et al. 2012 ). For example, a study indicated that the American pika has been extirpated or intensely diminished in some regions, primarily attributed to the CC-impacted extinction or at least local extirpation (Stewart et al. 2015 ). Besides, the anticipation of persistent responses to the impacts of CC often requires data records of several decades to rigorously analyze the critical pre and post CC patterns at species and ecosystem levels (Manes et al. 2021 ; Testa et al. 2018 ).

Nonetheless, the availability of such long-term data records is rare; hence, attempts are needed to focus on these profound aspects. Biodiversity is also vulnerable to the other associated impacts of CC, such as rising temperatures, droughts, and certain invasive pest species. For instance, a study revealed the changes in the composition of plankton communities attributed to rising temperatures. Henceforth, alterations in such aquatic producer communities, i.e., diatoms and calcareous plants, can ultimately lead to variation in the recycling of biological carbon. Moreover, such changes are characterized as a potential contributor to CO 2 differences between the Pleistocene glacial and interglacial periods (Kohfeld et al. 2005 ).

Climate change implications on human health

It is an understood corporality that human health is a significant victim of CC (Costello et al. 2009 ). According to the WHO, CC might be responsible for 250,000 additional deaths per year during 2030–2050 (Watts et al. 2015 ). These deaths are attributed to extreme weather-induced mortality and morbidity and the global expansion of vector-borne diseases (Lemery et al. 2021; Yang and Usman 2021 ; Meierrieks 2021 ; UNEP 2017 ). Here, some of the emerging health issues pertinent to this global problem are briefly described.

Climate change and antimicrobial resistance with corresponding economic costs

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an up-surging complex global health challenge (Garner et al. 2019 ; Lemery et al. 2021 ). Health professionals across the globe are extremely worried due to this phenomenon that has critical potential to reverse almost all the progress that has been achieved so far in the health discipline (Gosling and Arnell 2016 ). A massive amount of antibiotics is produced by many pharmaceutical industries worldwide, and the pathogenic microorganisms are gradually developing resistance to them, which can be comprehended how strongly this aspect can shake the foundations of national and global economies (UNEP 2017 ). This statement is supported by the fact that AMR is not developing in a particular region or country. Instead, it is flourishing in every continent of the world (WHO 2018 ). This plague is heavily pushing humanity to the post-antibiotic era, in which currently antibiotic-susceptible pathogens will once again lead to certain endemics and pandemics after being resistant(WHO 2018 ). Undesirably, if this statement would become a factuality, there might emerge certain risks in undertaking sophisticated interventions such as chemotherapy, joint replacement cases, and organ transplantation (Su et al. 2018 ). Presently, the amplification of drug resistance cases has made common illnesses like pneumonia, post-surgical infections, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, etc., too difficult and costly to be treated or cure well (WHO 2018 ). From a simple example, it can be assumed how easily antibiotic-resistant strains can be transmitted from one person to another and ultimately travel across the boundaries (Berendonk et al. 2015 ). Talking about the second- and third-generation classes of antibiotics, e.g., most renowned generations of cephalosporin antibiotics that are more expensive, broad-spectrum, more toxic, and usually require more extended periods whenever prescribed to patients (Lemery et al. 2021 ; Pärnänen et al. 2019 ). This scenario has also revealed that the abundance of resistant strains of pathogens was also higher in the Southern part (WHO 2018 ). As southern parts are generally warmer than their counterparts, it is evident from this example how CC-induced global warming can augment the spread of antibiotic-resistant strains within the biosphere, eventually putting additional economic burden in the face of developing new and costlier antibiotics. The ARG exchange to susceptible bacteria through one of the potential mechanisms, transformation, transduction, and conjugation; Selection pressure can be caused by certain antibiotics, metals or pesticides, etc., as shown in Fig.  5 .

Source: Elsayed et al. ( 2021 ); Karkman et al. ( 2018 )

A typical interaction between the susceptible and resistant strains.

Certain studies highlighted that conventional urban wastewater treatment plants are typical hotspots where most bacterial strains exchange genetic material through horizontal gene transfer (Fig.  5 ). Although at present, the extent of risks associated with the antibiotic resistance found in wastewater is complicated; environmental scientists and engineers have particular concerns about the potential impacts of these antibiotic resistance genes on human health (Ashbolt 2015 ). At most undesirable and worst case, these antibiotic-resistant genes containing bacteria can make their way to enter into the environment (Pruden et al. 2013 ), irrigation water used for crops and public water supplies and ultimately become a part of food chains and food webs (Ma et al. 2019 ; D. Wu et al. 2019 ). This problem has been reported manifold in several countries (Hendriksen et al. 2019 ), where wastewater as a means of irrigated water is quite common.

Climate change and vector borne-diseases

Temperature is a fundamental factor for the sustenance of living entities regardless of an ecosystem. So, a specific living being, especially a pathogen, requires a sophisticated temperature range to exist on earth. The second essential component of CC is precipitation, which also impacts numerous infectious agents’ transport and dissemination patterns. Global rising temperature is a significant cause of many species extinction. On the one hand, this changing environmental temperature may be causing species extinction, and on the other, this warming temperature might favor the thriving of some new organisms. Here, it was evident that some pathogens may also upraise once non-evident or reported (Patz et al. 2000 ). This concept can be exemplified through certain pathogenic strains of microorganisms that how the likelihood of various diseases increases in response to climate warming-induced environmental changes (Table 2 ).

A recent example is an outburst of coronavirus (COVID-19) in the Republic of China, causing pneumonia and severe acute respiratory complications (Cui et al. 2021 ; Song et al. 2021 ). The large family of viruses is harbored in numerous animals, bats, and snakes in particular (livescience.com) with the subsequent transfer into human beings. Hence, it is worth noting that the thriving of numerous vectors involved in spreading various diseases is influenced by Climate change (Ogden 2018 ; Santos et al. 2021 ).

Psychological impacts of climate change

Climate change (CC) is responsible for the rapid dissemination and exaggeration of certain epidemics and pandemics. In addition to the vast apparent impacts of climate change on health, forestry, agriculture, etc., it may also have psychological implications on vulnerable societies. It can be exemplified through the recent outburst of (COVID-19) in various countries around the world (Pal 2021 ). Besides, the victims of this viral infection have made healthy beings scarier and terrified. In the wake of such epidemics, people with common colds or fever are also frightened and must pass specific regulatory protocols. Living in such situations continuously terrifies the public and makes the stress familiar, which eventually makes them psychologically weak (npr.org).

CC boosts the extent of anxiety, distress, and other issues in public, pushing them to develop various mental-related problems. Besides, frequent exposure to extreme climatic catastrophes such as geological disasters also imprints post-traumatic disorder, and their ubiquitous occurrence paves the way to developing chronic psychological dysfunction. Moreover, repetitive listening from media also causes an increase in the person’s stress level (Association 2020 ). Similarly, communities living in flood-prone areas constantly live in extreme fear of drowning and die by floods. In addition to human lives, the flood-induced destruction of physical infrastructure is a specific reason for putting pressure on these communities (Ogden 2018 ). For instance, Ogden ( 2018 ) comprehensively denoted that Katrina’s Hurricane augmented the mental health issues in the victim communities.

Climate change impacts on the forestry sector

Forests are the global regulators of the world’s climate (FAO 2018 ) and have an indispensable role in regulating global carbon and nitrogen cycles (Rehman et al. 2021 ; Reichstein and Carvalhais 2019 ). Hence, disturbances in forest ecology affect the micro and macro-climates (Ellison et al. 2017 ). Climate warming, in return, has profound impacts on the growth and productivity of transboundary forests by influencing the temperature and precipitation patterns, etc. As CC induces specific changes in the typical structure and functions of ecosystems (Zhang et al. 2017 ) as well impacts forest health, climate change also has several devastating consequences such as forest fires, droughts, pest outbreaks (EPA 2018 ), and last but not the least is the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities. The rising frequency and intensity of another CC product, i.e., droughts, pose plenty of challenges to the well-being of global forests (Diffenbaugh et al. 2017 ), which is further projected to increase soon (Hartmann et al. 2018 ; Lehner et al. 2017 ; Rehman et al. 2021 ). Hence, CC induces storms, with more significant impacts also put extra pressure on the survival of the global forests (Martínez-Alvarado et al. 2018 ), significantly since their influences are augmented during higher winter precipitations with corresponding wetter soils causing weak root anchorage of trees (Brázdil et al. 2018 ). Surging temperature regimes causes alterations in usual precipitation patterns, which is a significant hurdle for the survival of temperate forests (Allen et al. 2010 ; Flannigan et al. 2013 ), letting them encounter severe stress and disturbances which adversely affects the local tree species (Hubbart et al. 2016 ; Millar and Stephenson 2015 ; Rehman et al. 2021 ).

Climate change impacts on forest-dependent communities

Forests are the fundamental livelihood resource for about 1.6 billion people worldwide; out of them, 350 million are distinguished with relatively higher reliance (Bank 2008 ). Agro-forestry-dependent communities comprise 1.2 billion, and 60 million indigenous people solely rely on forests and their products to sustain their lives (Sunderlin et al. 2005 ). For example, in the entire African continent, more than 2/3rd of inhabitants depend on forest resources and woodlands for their alimonies, e.g., food, fuelwood and grazing (Wasiq and Ahmad 2004 ). The livings of these people are more intensely affected by the climatic disruptions making their lives harder (Brown et al. 2014 ). On the one hand, forest communities are incredibly vulnerable to CC due to their livelihoods, cultural and spiritual ties as well as socio-ecological connections, and on the other, they are not familiar with the term “climate change.” (Rahman and Alam 2016 ). Among the destructive impacts of temperature and rainfall, disruption of the agroforestry crops with resultant downscale growth and yield (Macchi et al. 2008 ). Cruz ( 2015 ) ascribed that forest-dependent smallholder farmers in the Philippines face the enigma of delayed fruiting, more severe damages by insect and pest incidences due to unfavorable temperature regimes, and changed rainfall patterns.

Among these series of challenges to forest communities, their well-being is also distinctly vulnerable to CC. Though the detailed climate change impacts on human health have been comprehensively mentioned in the previous section, some studies have listed a few more devastating effects on the prosperity of forest-dependent communities. For instance, the Himalayan people have been experiencing frequent skin-borne diseases such as malaria and other skin diseases due to increasing mosquitoes, wild boar as well, and new wasps species, particularly in higher altitudes that were almost non-existent before last 5–10 years (Xu et al. 2008 ). Similarly, people living at high altitudes in Bangladesh have experienced frequent mosquito-borne calamities (Fardous; Sharma 2012 ). In addition, the pace of other waterborne diseases such as infectious diarrhea, cholera, pathogenic induced abdominal complications and dengue has also been boosted in other distinguished regions of Bangladesh (Cell 2009 ; Gunter et al. 2008 ).

Pest outbreak

Upscaling hotter climate may positively affect the mobile organisms with shorter generation times because they can scurry from harsh conditions than the immobile species (Fettig et al. 2013 ; Schoene and Bernier 2012 ) and are also relatively more capable of adapting to new environments (Jactel et al. 2019 ). It reveals that insects adapt quickly to global warming due to their mobility advantages. Due to past outbreaks, the trees (forests) are relatively more susceptible victims (Kurz et al. 2008 ). Before CC, the influence of factors mentioned earlier, i.e., droughts and storms, was existent and made the forests susceptible to insect pest interventions; however, the global forests remain steadfast, assiduous, and green (Jactel et al. 2019 ). The typical reasons could be the insect herbivores were regulated by several tree defenses and pressures of predation (Wilkinson and Sherratt 2016 ). As climate greatly influences these phenomena, the global forests cannot be so sedulous against such challenges (Jactel et al. 2019 ). Table 3 demonstrates some of the particular considerations with practical examples that are essential while mitigating the impacts of CC in the forestry sector.

Climate change impacts on tourism

Tourism is a commercial activity that has roots in multi-dimensions and an efficient tool with adequate job generation potential, revenue creation, earning of spectacular foreign exchange, enhancement in cross-cultural promulgation and cooperation, a business tool for entrepreneurs and eventually for the country’s national development (Arshad et al. 2018 ; Scott 2021 ). Among a plethora of other disciplines, the tourism industry is also a distinct victim of climate warming (Gössling et al. 2012 ; Hall et al. 2015 ) as the climate is among the essential resources that enable tourism in particular regions as most preferred locations. Different places at different times of the year attract tourists both within and across the countries depending upon the feasibility and compatibility of particular weather patterns. Hence, the massive variations in these weather patterns resulting from CC will eventually lead to monumental challenges to the local economy in that specific area’s particular and national economy (Bujosa et al. 2015 ). For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report demonstrated that the global tourism industry had faced a considerable decline in the duration of ski season, including the loss of some ski areas and the dramatic shifts in tourist destinations’ climate warming.

Furthermore, different studies (Neuvonen et al. 2015 ; Scott et al. 2004 ) indicated that various currently perfect tourist spots, e.g., coastal areas, splendid islands, and ski resorts, will suffer consequences of CC. It is also worth noting that the quality and potential of administrative management potential to cope with the influence of CC on the tourism industry is of crucial significance, which renders specific strengths of resiliency to numerous destinations to withstand against it (Füssel and Hildén 2014 ). Similarly, in the partial or complete absence of adequate socio-economic and socio-political capital, the high-demanding tourist sites scurry towards the verge of vulnerability. The susceptibility of tourism is based on different components such as the extent of exposure, sensitivity, life-supporting sectors, and capacity assessment factors (Füssel and Hildén 2014 ). It is obvious corporality that sectors such as health, food, ecosystems, human habitat, infrastructure, water availability, and the accessibility of a particular region are prone to CC. Henceforth, the sensitivity of these critical sectors to CC and, in return, the adaptive measures are a hallmark in determining the composite vulnerability of climate warming (Ionescu et al. 2009 ).

Moreover, the dependence on imported food items, poor hygienic conditions, and inadequate health professionals are dominant aspects affecting the local terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity. Meanwhile, the greater dependency on ecosystem services and its products also makes a destination more fragile to become a prey of CC (Rizvi et al. 2015 ). Some significant non-climatic factors are important indicators of a particular ecosystem’s typical health and functioning, e.g., resource richness and abundance portray the picture of ecosystem stability. Similarly, the species abundance is also a productive tool that ensures that the ecosystem has a higher buffering capacity, which is terrific in terms of resiliency (Roscher et al. 2013 ).

Climate change impacts on the economic sector

Climate plays a significant role in overall productivity and economic growth. Due to its increasingly global existence and its effect on economic growth, CC has become one of the major concerns of both local and international environmental policymakers (Ferreira et al. 2020 ; Gleditsch 2021 ; Abbass et al. 2021b ; Lamperti et al. 2021 ). The adverse effects of CC on the overall productivity factor of the agricultural sector are therefore significant for understanding the creation of local adaptation policies and the composition of productive climate policy contracts. Previous studies on CC in the world have already forecasted its effects on the agricultural sector. Researchers have found that global CC will impact the agricultural sector in different world regions. The study of the impacts of CC on various agrarian activities in other demographic areas and the development of relative strategies to respond to effects has become a focal point for researchers (Chandioet al. 2020 ; Gleditsch 2021 ; Mosavi et al. 2020 ).

With the rapid growth of global warming since the 1980s, the temperature has started increasing globally, which resulted in the incredible transformation of rain and evaporation in the countries. The agricultural development of many countries has been reliant, delicate, and susceptible to CC for a long time, and it is on the development of agriculture total factor productivity (ATFP) influence different crops and yields of farmers (Alhassan 2021 ; Wu  2020 ).

Food security and natural disasters are increasing rapidly in the world. Several major climatic/natural disasters have impacted local crop production in the countries concerned. The effects of these natural disasters have been poorly controlled by the development of the economies and populations and may affect human life as well. One example is China, which is among the world’s most affected countries, vulnerable to natural disasters due to its large population, harsh environmental conditions, rapid CC, low environmental stability, and disaster power. According to the January 2016 statistical survey, China experienced an economic loss of 298.3 billion Yuan, and about 137 million Chinese people were severely affected by various natural disasters (Xie et al. 2018 ).

Mitigation and adaptation strategies of climate changes

Adaptation and mitigation are the crucial factors to address the response to CC (Jahanzad et al. 2020 ). Researchers define mitigation on climate changes, and on the other hand, adaptation directly impacts climate changes like floods. To some extent, mitigation reduces or moderates greenhouse gas emission, and it becomes a critical issue both economically and environmentally (Botzen et al. 2021 ; Jahanzad et al. 2020 ; Kongsager 2018 ; Smit et al. 2000 ; Vale et al. 2021 ; Usman et al. 2021 ; Verheyen 2005 ).

Researchers have deep concern about the adaptation and mitigation methodologies in sectoral and geographical contexts. Agriculture, industry, forestry, transport, and land use are the main sectors to adapt and mitigate policies(Kärkkäinen et al. 2020 ; Waheed et al. 2021 ). Adaptation and mitigation require particular concern both at the national and international levels. The world has faced a significant problem of climate change in the last decades, and adaptation to these effects is compulsory for economic and social development. To adapt and mitigate against CC, one should develop policies and strategies at the international level (Hussain et al. 2020 ). Figure  6 depicts the list of current studies on sectoral impacts of CC with adaptation and mitigation measures globally.

Sectoral impacts of climate change with adaptation and mitigation measures.

Conclusion and future perspectives

Specific socio-agricultural, socio-economic, and physical systems are the cornerstone of psychological well-being, and the alteration in these systems by CC will have disastrous impacts. Climate variability, alongside other anthropogenic and natural stressors, influences human and environmental health sustainability. Food security is another concerning scenario that may lead to compromised food quality, higher food prices, and inadequate food distribution systems. Global forests are challenged by different climatic factors such as storms, droughts, flash floods, and intense precipitation. On the other hand, their anthropogenic wiping is aggrandizing their existence. Undoubtedly, the vulnerability scale of the world’s regions differs; however, appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures can aid the decision-making bodies in developing effective policies to tackle its impacts. Presently, modern life on earth has tailored to consistent climatic patterns, and accordingly, adapting to such considerable variations is of paramount importance. Because the faster changes in climate will make it harder to survive and adjust, this globally-raising enigma calls for immediate attention at every scale ranging from elementary community level to international level. Still, much effort, research, and dedication are required, which is the most critical time. Some policy implications can help us to mitigate the consequences of climate change, especially the most affected sectors like the agriculture sector;

Seasonal variations and cultivation practices

Warming might lengthen the season in frost-prone growing regions (temperate and arctic zones), allowing for longer-maturing seasonal cultivars with better yields (Pfadenhauer 2020 ; Bonacci 2019 ). Extending the planting season may allow additional crops each year; when warming leads to frequent warmer months highs over critical thresholds, a split season with a brief summer fallow may be conceivable for short-period crops such as wheat barley, cereals, and many other vegetable crops. The capacity to prolong the planting season in tropical and subtropical places where the harvest season is constrained by precipitation or agriculture farming occurs after the year may be more limited and dependent on how precipitation patterns vary (Wu et al. 2017 ).

New varieties of crops

The genetic component is comprehensive for many yields, but it is restricted like kiwi fruit for a few. Ali et al. ( 2017 ) investigated how new crops will react to climatic changes (also stated in Mall et al. 2017 ). Hot temperature, drought, insect resistance; salt tolerance; and overall crop production and product quality increases would all be advantageous (Akkari 2016 ). Genetic mapping and engineering can introduce a greater spectrum of features. The adoption of genetically altered cultivars has been slowed, particularly in the early forecasts owing to the complexity in ensuring features are expediently expressed throughout the entire plant, customer concerns, economic profitability, and regulatory impediments (Wirehn 2018 ; Davidson et al. 2016 ).

Changes in management and other input factors

To get the full benefit of the CO 2 would certainly require additional nitrogen and other fertilizers. Nitrogen not consumed by the plants may be excreted into groundwater, discharged into water surface, or emitted from the land, soil nitrous oxide when large doses of fertilizer are sprayed. Increased nitrogen levels in groundwater sources have been related to human chronic illnesses and impact marine ecosystems. Cultivation, grain drying, and other field activities have all been examined in depth in the studies (Barua et al. 2018 ).

The technological and socio-economic adaptation

The policy consequence of the causative conclusion is that as a source of alternative energy, biofuel production is one of the routes that explain oil price volatility separate from international macroeconomic factors. Even though biofuel production has just begun in a few sample nations, there is still a tremendous worldwide need for feedstock to satisfy industrial expansion in China and the USA, which explains the food price relationship to the global oil price. Essentially, oil-exporting countries may create incentives in their economies to increase food production. It may accomplish by giving farmers financing, seedlings, fertilizers, and farming equipment. Because of the declining global oil price and, as a result, their earnings from oil export, oil-producing nations may be unable to subsidize food imports even in the near term. As a result, these countries can boost the agricultural value chain for export. It may be accomplished through R&D and adding value to their food products to increase income by correcting exchange rate misalignment and adverse trade terms. These nations may also diversify their economies away from oil, as dependence on oil exports alone is no longer economically viable given the extreme volatility of global oil prices. Finally, resource-rich and oil-exporting countries can convert to non-food renewable energy sources such as solar, hydro, coal, wind, wave, and tidal energy. By doing so, both world food and oil supplies would be maintained rather than harmed.

IRENA’s modeling work shows that, if a comprehensive policy framework is in place, efforts toward decarbonizing the energy future will benefit economic activity, jobs (outweighing losses in the fossil fuel industry), and welfare. Countries with weak domestic supply chains and a large reliance on fossil fuel income, in particular, must undertake structural reforms to capitalize on the opportunities inherent in the energy transition. Governments continue to give major policy assistance to extract fossil fuels, including tax incentives, financing, direct infrastructure expenditures, exemptions from environmental regulations, and other measures. The majority of major oil and gas producing countries intend to increase output. Some countries intend to cut coal output, while others plan to maintain or expand it. While some nations are beginning to explore and execute policies aimed at a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuel production, these efforts have yet to impact major producing countries’ plans and goals. Verifiable and comparable data on fossil fuel output and assistance from governments and industries are critical to closing the production gap. Governments could increase openness by declaring their production intentions in their climate obligations under the Paris Agreement.

It is firmly believed that achieving the Paris Agreement commitments is doubtlful without undergoing renewable energy transition across the globe (Murshed 2020 ; Zhao et al. 2022 ). Policy instruments play the most important role in determining the degree of investment in renewable energy technology. This study examines the efficacy of various policy strategies in the renewable energy industry of multiple nations. Although its impact is more visible in established renewable energy markets, a renewable portfolio standard is also a useful policy instrument. The cost of producing renewable energy is still greater than other traditional energy sources. Furthermore, government incentives in the R&D sector can foster innovation in this field, resulting in cost reductions in the renewable energy industry. These nations may export their technologies and share their policy experiences by forming networks among their renewable energy-focused organizations. All policy measures aim to reduce production costs while increasing the proportion of renewables to a country’s energy system. Meanwhile, long-term contracts with renewable energy providers, government commitment and control, and the establishment of long-term goals can assist developing nations in deploying renewable energy technology in their energy sector.

Availability of data and material

Data sources and relevant links are provided in the paper to access data.

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Abbass, K., Qasim, M.Z., Song, H. et al. A review of the global climate change impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29 , 42539–42559 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19718-6

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Home / Climate Change Awareness and Concern in 119 Countries

Peer-Reviewed Article · Jul 27, 2015

Climate change awareness and concern in 119 countries, by anthony leiserowitz and peter howe, filed under: audiences and beliefs & attitudes.

We are pleased to announce an article published today in Nature Climate Change : “Predictors of public climate change awareness and risk perception around the world.”  Our research reveals for the first time what the world thinks about climate change and why. Using data from the 2007-2008 Gallup World Poll, conducted in 119 countries, researchers identified the factors that most influence climate change awareness and risk perception for 90 percent of the world’s population.

The contrast between developed and developing countries was striking: In North America, Europe and Japan, more than 90 percent of the public is aware of climate change. But in many developing countries relatively few are aware of the issue, although many do report having observed changes in local weather patterns.

Overall, we find that about 40 percent of adults worldwide have never heard of climate change.  This rises to more than 65 percent in some developing countries, like Egypt, Bangladesh and India.

40 percent of adults worldwide have never heard of climate change

The research team also found that globally, education level tends to be the single strongest predictor of public awareness of climate change. However, the research reveals some stark differences between countries. In the United States, the key predictors of awareness are civic engagement, communication access, and education. Meanwhile in China, climate change awareness is most closely associated with education, proximity to urban areas, and household income.

“This the first and only truly global study where we have climate change opinion data from over 100 countries, so it allows us to compare the findings across the world,” said lead author Tien Ming Lee, a Princeton University researcher who conducted the analysis while at the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, at the Earth Institute, Columbia University.

Prior studies have found that American views are also strongly affected by partisan politics. But American politics doesn’t map to most other countries and there is little global data on political ideology to compare to, the researchers said.

Assessing the risks is another matter. Looking at just the respondents who were aware of climate change, the researchers examined who perceives climate change as a serious threat to themselves and their own family. Globally, they found a pattern opposite that of awareness – people in most developing countries perceived climate change as a much greater threat than people in developed countries.

Top predictors by country of climate change awareness (a) and risk perception (b).

The team then investigated what factors best predict risk perception. They found that people in Latin America and Europe tend to perceive climate change as a greater threat when they understand that humans are the major cause. But in many African and Asian countries, risk perception is most strongly associated with a more tangible factor: changes in local temperatures. However, again there are important differences between countries. For example, in the U.S., Americans are more likely to perceive climate change as a personal threat when they understand it is human-caused, when they perceive that local temperatures have changed, and when they support government efforts to preserve the environment. In China, however, the public perceives climate change as a greater threat when they understand it is human-caused and when they are dissatisfied with local air quality.

What does all this mean? Limiting climate change involves major shifts in public policy and individual behavior regarding energy, transportation, consumption and more. Likewise, preparing for and adapting to climate change impacts will require changes in current practices. Governments will need public support for and engagement in climate change solutions. This new research suggests that gaining public engagement will vary from country to country, depending on local culture, economy, education and other factors.

Improving basic education, climate literacy and public understanding of the local dimensions of climate change are vital for public engagement and support for climate action

The results suggest that improving basic education, climate literacy and public understanding of the local dimensions of climate change are vital for public engagement and support for climate action.

The study was conducted by researchers from Yale University, Columbia University, Utah State University, Princeton University, The University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Academia Sinica in Taipei.  Please email us at [email protected] with the subject line “Gallup World Poll NCC paper” if you would like a copy.  It can also be accessed here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2728

International Attitudes & Behavior

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The Macroeconomic Impact of Climate Change: Global vs. Local Temperature

This paper estimates that the macroeconomic damages from climate change are six times larger than previously thought. We exploit natural variability in global temperature and rely on time-series variation. A 1°C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world GDP. Global temperature shocks correlate much more strongly with extreme climatic events than the country-level temperature shocks commonly used in the panel literature, explaining why our estimate is substantially larger. We use our reduced-form evidence to estimate structural damage functions in a standard neoclassical growth model. Our results imply a Social Cost of Carbon of $1,056 per ton of carbon dioxide. A business-as-usual warming scenario leads to a present value welfare loss of 31%. Both are multiple orders of magnitude above previous estimates and imply that unilateral decarbonization policy is cost-effective for large countries such as the United States.

Adrien Bilal gratefully acknowledges support from the Chae Family Economics Research Fund at Harvard University. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

MARC RIS BibTeΧ

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Climate Change Prevention through Community Actions and Empowerment: A Scoping Review

Maria joão salvador costa.

1 Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Health, Institute of Health Sciences, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, 4169-005 Porto, Portugal

Alexandra Leitão

2 Católica Porto Business School, Research Centre in Management and Economics, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, 4169-005 Porto, Portugal

3 Health Sciences Research Unit: Nursing (UICISA: E), Nursing School of Coimbra, Portugal Centre for Evidence Based Practice: A JBI Centre of Excellence, 3004-011 Coimbra, Portugal

Vanessa Monteiro

4 Vila Real Community Care Unit 1, 5000-557 Vila Real, Portugal

Associated Data

For data supporting reported results please contact the authors of this review.

As society tries to tackle climate change around the globe, communities need to reduce its impact on human health. The purpose of this review is to identify key stakeholders involved in mitigating and adapting to climate change, as well as the type and characteristics of community empowerment actions implemented so far to address the problem. Published and unpublished studies from January 2005 to March 2022 in English and Portuguese were included in this review. The search, conducted on PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, SciELO, and RCAAP (Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal), followed a three-step search strategy. Data extraction was performed by two independent reviewers, using an extraction tool specifically designed for the review questions. Twenty-seven studies were eligible for inclusion: six used interviews as a qualitative method, three were systematic reviews, three were case study analyses, three used surveys and questionnaires as quantitative methods, two used integrative baseline reviews, and three utilized a process model design. Six studies targeted local, public and private stakeholders. Community settings were the context target of fifteen studies, whereas twelve specifically referred to urban settings. Seven types of community actions were acknowledged across the globe, characterised as hybrid interventions and referring to the leading stakeholders: local governments, non-governmental organizations, civil society, universities, public health, and private sectors.

1. Introduction

Since the 1850s, the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, has risen, mostly as a result of human activity [ 1 ]. The use of chemicals and fossil fuels in industry and inadequate land use and deforestation in agriculture have led to global warming and to the consequent climate change with the rise in both average global temperature and in sea level. Scientific evidence shows that both pose an enormous threat to human health. Examples of these are heat waves, extreme cold, flooding, dust storms, and hurricanes, among others. These major climatic issues on our planet need to be addressed, mitigated, and reduced, especially in urban areas [ 2 ].

Although the United Nations First Earth Summit took place in 1972 in Stockholm [ 3 ], Sweden, it was not until the Kyoto Protocol in Japan in 1997 that an international agreement among 160 countries was achieved. The Protocol first introduced greenhouse gas reduction targets for industrialised countries’ overall emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Since then, several climate-change prevention declarations have been ratified to limit global warming by 1.5 °C. The last and more important ones were COP 21 in Paris (2015), known as the Paris Agreement, COP 25 in Madrid (2019) and COP 26 in Glasgow, Scotland in 2021, known as the United Nations Climate Change Conference [ 4 ].

According to Steffen, Richardson, Rockstrom et al. [ 5 ], three of the planetary boundaries’ frameworks presented by the Stockholm Resilience Centre (climate change, loss of biodiversity, and nitrogen use) have already been surpassed since 2009. However, by 2015 it was clear that society’s activities had pushed these boundaries, and further areas were affected, such as shifts in nutrient cycles and land use, resulting in a significant impact on human health.

Although science shows that climate change is a major public health threat, research surprisingly demonstrates an extensive awareness of the climate concerns; however, limited capacity to adapt and change is an issue due to a lack of expertise and resources which certainly would empower communities facing climate-related vulnerabilities.

In 2008, community intervention management models for empowerment and resilience were promoted by using key top-down interventions in which organizations outside the community, such as governments or other institutional expert agencies. However, bottom-up interventions, usually using qualitative data and involving the participation of both experts and nonexperts sensitive the conditions in each community started to be used to empower and support communities with knowledge and risk awareness [ 6 ]. Participation processes are required to involve several stakeholders in assessing community resilience and have significant benefits as they can effectively raise awareness and broaden the understanding of risks, promoting local participation at the same time [ 6 ].

Recently, a community assessment, intervention, and empowerment model (MAIEC) highlighted the importance of hybrid approaches by applying a combination of bottom-up and top-down interventions [ 7 ]. It is essential that key and effective community actions, specifically on climate change mitigation and adaptation, have integrated policies and approaches from multiple stakeholders for solutions contributing to early actions on urban governance and climate change.

Urban areas such as cities seem to function as “human ecological systems” supported and integrated by “natural ecological systems” [ 8 ]. The interaction between these two ecological systems results in the sustainability of the urban setting as well as the health and well-being of its population. The three popular cornerstones of sustainability, first presented by Barbier [ 9 ], include environmental, social, and economic circumstances that determine the human life journey ( Figure 1 ) as well as the physical and mental health and well-being, which is why health should be seen as a priority when planning urban sustainability policies.

The three pillars of sustainable development, adapted with permission from Millard et al. (2016) [ 12 ].

Nevertheless, to promote physical and mental health, as well as the population’s well-being, recommendations must be shared and communicated, which is why health promotion plays a significant role within community settings. Laverack acknowledges community empowerment as a product of health promotion actions, therefore strengthening the role of health practitioners. For instance, in the empowerment process, this appears to be a good strategy, as health practitioners are responsible for promoting health literacy within the community [ 10 ], key in climate mitigation and adaptation actions.

Thus, new models for clinical decision making models such as MAIEC [ 7 ], mentioned above, may be used by health professionals such as nurses, who are environmentally aware, to plan their actions towards empowering the communities and optimizing health levels [ 11 ].

Below are some of the actions suggested to tackle climate change in urban spaces [ 8 ]:

• - Cross-governmental action;
• - Improve city planning, development, and management;
• - Develop integrated approaches to urban planning;
• - Create sustainability commissions with statutory reporting responsibilities;
• - Create sustainable development frameworks to guide policies;
• - Embed sustainability into decision making;
• - Ensure independent assessment of sustainability goals;
• - Promote health, equality of opportunities, and sustainable development.
• - Ensure a people-centred approach.

These actions integrate responses to health and climate change and have specific characteristic requirements for a healthy city, such as policies encouraging walking to school and local shops, easy access to public transport, provision of cycle-ways, community activities, strong public health education system and planning workforce, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches in planning, implementation and evaluation of policies, incorporation of science- and evidence-based approaches, and leadership-valuing and adaptive management system approaches.

Governments, universities with public health and planning programs, professional organisations, industry, community organisations, business leaders, community leaders, and elected representatives seem to be some of the key stakeholders identified within the literature [ 8 ].

Thus, local governments hold key responsibilities in developing deep decarbonization plans in cities. Decarbonization is defined as the process in which fossil energy becomes just a small part of the energy mix [ 13 ] and includes targets of 80–100% net reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 2050 or even before.

Local governments, on the other hand, are the ones who need to take into consideration greenhouse gas emissions’ impact on the population. According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), a global research organization, which works with several governments, businesses, and other institutions to enhance people’s lives by fighting climate-related challenges, GHG emissions can be categorized in several scopes: Scope 1 emissions relate to direct emissions from sources such as on-site manufacturing and/or industrial processes, computers and data centres, and on-site transportation. Scope 2 emissions refer to indirect emissions originating from purchased electricity, steam, heating, and cooling. The source of electricity, determines whether these emissions are high or low. Scope 3 emissions refer to any indirect emissions that occur in the supply chain, such as employee commuting or business travel, purchased goods and services and use of sold products. Most of the time, Scope 3 emissions are larger than Scope 1 and 2 [ 14 ]. So, considering that urban areas, are the largest place-based source of greenhouse emissions, accounting for around 71–76% of global emissions, they are therefore a priority when it comes to community actions to mitigate or adapt to climate change [ 13 ].

Deep decarbonization in cities focuses on five significant sectors: electricity, buildings, transportation, waste, carbon sinks, and storage. In addition, innovative actions are underway to mitigate all scopes (1, 2, and 3) of greenhouse gas emissions [ 13 ].

Actions to tackle climate change can be divided into corporate actions (the ones that result from the direct action of local governments) and community actions (the ones that result from controlling GHG emissions or minimizing their impact within the boundaries of each community). All actions are focused on four priority sectors, such as energy/electricity, buildings, transportation, and waste.

As we know, climate change is expected to aggravate existing local vulnerabilities as society moves toward an increase of global trade and travel, which facilitate the arrival and dispersal of new pathogens, disease vectors, and reservoir species. Antimicrobial resistance, new viruses, and infectious diseases, animal health, food safety, and health care capacity are some of the issues local urban communities are now facing [ 15 ].

However, surveillance strategies are considered a way to provide an effective public health response. The European Parliament and Council regulates this type of surveillance through the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). This agency carries on extensive literature reviews, on-going evaluation of current surveillance systems throughout Europe, risk analysis of different diseases and consultation with experts within the EU member states. This will consequently evaluate new disease risks from climate change and focus on potential changes in surveillance. This type of surveillance can be either indicator-based or event-based. Indicator-based identifies annual country-level reporting of confirmed human cases, and the event-based detects individual disease outbreaks in communities [ 15 ].

In 2012, for instance, 26 out of the required 46 infectious diseases reported by EU member states were found to be directly or indirectly related to climate change. However, being related to climate change is not in itself a cause for surveillance. Factors such as prevalence, severity, secondary complications, and human and financial costs are sustained as important parameters in a disease’s analysis, and depending on those factors, the strength of association with climate change is then categorized as low, medium, and high [ 15 ].

Actions such as enhancing collaboration between veterinary surveillance and the public health sector will ensure preparedness and more effective responses if pathogens and vectors such as zoonoses (food-borne and water-borne diseases) become a concern for humans in a specific region or community. These actions were mostly characterized by carrying out regular meetings, routine sharing of epidemiologic and laboratory data, preparation of linked response plans for human or veterinary health and coordinated outbreak investigations.

There is evidence that policy-driven adaptation actions such as an effective public health response is most likely to help contain human and financial costs derived from climate-related emerging diseases [ 15 ]. Presently, coastal areas globally are becoming unviable, with people no longer able to maintain livelihoods and settlements due to, for example, increasing floods, storm surges, coastal erosion, and sea level rise, yet there exist significant policy obstacles and practical and regulatory challenges to community-led and community-wide responses. For many, receiving support only on the individual level for relocation or other adaptive responses, individual and community harm is perpetuated through the loss of culture and identity incurred through forced assimilation policies. Often, challenges dealt to frontline communities are founded on centuries of injustices. Can these challenges to both norms and policies be addressed? Can we develop socially, culturally, environmentally, and economically just sustainable adaptation processes that support community responses, maintenance, and evolution of traditions and rejuvenate regenerative life-supporting ecosystems? These type of studies bring together indigenous community leaders, knowledge-holders, and allied collaborators from Louisiana, Hawaii, Alaska, Borikén/Puerto Rico and the Marshall Islands to share their stories and lived experiences of the relocation and other adaptive challenges in their homelands and territories, the obstacles posed by state or regional governments in community adaptation efforts, ideas for transforming the research paradigm from expecting communities to answer scientific questions to having scientists address community priorities and the healing processes that communities are employing. The contributors are connected through the Rising Voices Centre for Indigenous and Earth Sciences, which brings together indigenous, tribal, and community leaders; atmospheric, social, biological, and ecological scientists; students; educators and other experts and facilitates intercultural, relation-based approaches for understanding and adapting to extreme weather and climate events, climate variability, and climate change [ 16 ].

In coastal areas, for instance, Maldonado and others highlight that there is a singularity to each community; therefore, prior to any plan for relocation, site expansion, climate change adaptation or mitigation, we must ensure policies and processes are humanized, guaranteeing that communities’ unique histories, traditions, and priorities are properly acknowledged [ 16 ].

When climate change migration or displacement occurs, communities require support to continue their practices and traditions elsewhere as this will certainly contribute to their resilience and prevent a loss of identity or any forced assimilation. Community resettlement entails the need to listen not only to scientists, agencies, and policy makers but also to citizens, enabling them to contribute to all decisions [ 16 ].

Despite existing evidence showing that local government climate policies have minimal impact and do not reduce GHG emissions, due to financial constraints, there is still a lack of research regarding climate policy-making processes and the role of key stakeholders. Our study is designed to fill this gap. Acting alone, local governments will be unable to mitigate climate problems. Instead, local activists, such as climate protection networks and other grassroots groups, may push elected representatives to act, build partnerships, and gain required public support. New research is now showing that bottom-up policy processes such as the ones above can develop new climate policies based on new standards and programs, which have more impact on reducing GHG emissions [ 17 ].

The European Commission has recently adopted the concept of “nature-based solutions” (NbS) that aims to be inclusive, transparent, and empower governance processes. NbS has shown its benefits when it comes to dealing with the challenges related to economic viability, environmental protection, and social equity. An example of this is the Horizon 2020 funding programme, responsible for sponsoring several research programs and teams focused on the verification, design, and development of NbS to encourage its implementation [ 18 ].

A wide range of stakeholders at different governance levels need to be involved to generate collective community actions which then lead to more sustainable approaches [ 18 ]. NbS activities promote “social cohesion, citizen security, environmental justice, and human health” [ 18 ] (p. 2).

To build resilient cities that can meet the challenges of natural hazard management, for instance, Thaler et al. [ 19 ] suggest that natural hazard dynamics need changing to ensure better urban environments and promote community well-being. Key individuals and groups of activists are often engaged as policy entrepreneurs, motivating the community to engage in societal transformation that goes beyond consultation and information-sharing.

The example of Australia regarding adaptation strategies is key. Rychetnik, Sainsbury, and Stewart [ 20 ] refer to the need of preparedness of local health districts in responding to the inevitable effects of climate change. Available data and models of climate change impact assessments must be used to identify existing risks and vulnerabilities. This will help health services prepare and respond to health emergencies and disasters in the future. Only by doing so, can longer-term financial costs be avoided and a safer environment and better health care be provided.

Informing what stakeholders are involved in preventing and adapting to climate change and how they are accomplishing this colossal task is key. Therefore, prior to writing our scoping review protocol [ 21 ], preliminary search was conducted on PROSPERO, MEDLINE, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and the JBI Evidence Synthesis. This search did not find any review that met the current objective. Hence, the present scoping review explored the variety of stakeholders participating in community empowerment processes to tackle climate change and their community actions towards it. The objective was to identify key stakeholders involved in mitigating and adapting to climate change and the type of actions led or implemented so far, including the characteristics of these, whilst focusing on urban community settings. As per prior protocol, studies were limited to the period between 2005 and March 2022, although the authors have assumed that recent studies seemed more relevant for current practices.

2. Review Questions

The scoping review focused on the questions below:

• Which community empowerment actions have been implemented so far to prevent climate change?
• What are the characteristics of these community actions to prevent climate change using both adaptation and mitigation approaches?
• Which stakeholders led or implemented these community actions?

3. Inclusion Criteria

3.1. participants.

This review considered studies involving stakeholders such as leaders, organisations, governments, managers, health professionals, and others who led or implemented community actions in preventing climate change through mitigation or adaptation.

3.2. Concepts

This review explored the combination of two core concepts: community empowerment and climate change. Although community empowerment is a very used term, its meaning may change according to the context and depending on the stakeholders involved, but Laverack [ 10 ] highlights that it improves participation, develops local leadership, enhances the capability to query the state of things and the capability of organizing resources for an improved management of people and organizations. For the present review, we used the definition of climate change used by United Nations [ 22 ] which attributes climate change directly or indirectly to human activity, with consequences for the global atmosphere, inducing climate variability over time.

3.3. Contexts

Considering the project in which this investigation is being carried out, this review considered all studies that include community actions led or implemented by stakeholders in any urban community environment. All urban community settings, such as houses, institutions, cities, and others, were considered if they included community actions that led to climate change mitigation or adaptation.

3.4. Type of Studies

Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies were included for consideration, as well as texts, opinion papers, and other grey literature such as dissertations, published or unpublished. Relevant documents retrieved by reference screening were also considered.

4. Materials and Methods

This review followed the JBI methodology for scoping reviews and was carried out in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist [ 23 ]. (Please refer to Appendix A ). As previously mentioned, an a priori protocol was conducted and published earlier in 2022 where objectives, inclusion criteria and methods of analysis were identified and detailed in advance.

4.1. Search Strategy

The authors used a three-step approach for the search strategy:

• A preliminary search was initially conducted to develop the prior protocol on the following databases: Prospero, MEDLINE, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and the JBI Evidence Synthesis, aiming to identify relevant articles on the topic.
• A comprehensive search was then followed using search terms, keywords, and MeSH descriptors, where titles and abstracts of eligible articles on the topic were considered. (Please refer to Appendix B ).
• The third step consisted of the screening of reference lists from the articles to add further relevant studies that would have been missed otherwise (snowballing sampling) as this technique represents a “purposive method of data collection in qualitative research” [ 24 ] (p. 1). Finally, only free, full-text articles, written in English or Portuguese, published from 1 January 2005, until 7 March 2022 were considered for inclusion.

Information Sources

The abovementioned databases (PUBMED, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science, SciELO) were used to locate both published and unpublished studies. Unpublished studies and grey literature were also included through RCAAP (Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal), and hand-searched references were considered for inclusion. Google Scholar was not used since it does not retrieve all evidence-based studies, and the platform only allows a limited number of documents.

4.2. Study Selection

Although articles published since 2005—the year in which the Kyoto Protocol (1997) came into force—were considered for inclusion, a lot has happened since, which is why the authors worked to select the most relevant and up-to date studies, as they reflect the most current practices.

Following the search, all relevant studies identified from 2005 onwards were identified against the inclusion criteria and uploaded onto Rayyan [ 25 ], a web-tool for a thorough analysis of the selected studies, to identify duplicate records and resolve each one using a blind process with the objective of retrieving the relevant studies for the current review. A first double-blind review of titles and abstracts was conducted in detail by two independent reviewers against the inclusion criteria. Finally, the free and full-text relevant studies eligible were comprehensively reviewed, and relevant ones were selected for inclusion. All disagreements were resolved through discussion, involving a third reviewer when required. The search retrieved a total of 2543 records. Of these, 438 records were duplicate studies and therefore deleted, resulting in 2105 eligible to be screened alongside 2 others from snowballing. From the 39 free full-text articles read, 12 were excluded (9 due to ineligible outcome and 3 due to ineligible context). In total, 27 studies were retrieved to be included within the narrative synthesis. (Please refer to Figure 2 ).

4.3. Data Extraction

Data were extracted from the studies included in the scoping review by teams of two independent reviewers per year of studies. A data extraction tool, already developed in the review protocol, now enhanced, was used by each team. The data extracted included detailed information about stakeholders involved and the type and characteristics of the actions identified in promoting community empowerment aiming to prevent climate change in our planet. Disagreements were resolved through dialogue and discussion amongst each team of reviewers.

A data extraction tool aligned with the objectives and the aim of the review questions containing the abovementioned key aspects of the studies selected for inclusion is provided below to support this review. (Please refer to Appendix C ).

4.4. Data Analysis and Presentation

As per recommendation from the JBI scoping review guidelines, data collected with the data extraction tool is presented graphically, however, complemented by a narrative summary of the results describing how these relate to the review’s objective and questions. The data generated was analysed through frequency and text analysis to identify the categories and characteristics of community actions that led to or were implemented as well as the types of stakeholders involved in each one of them, aiming to respond to the review’s objective and questions.

5.1. Study Inclusion

In total, the database search and other sources retrieved 2543 studies, 438 duplicates were removed, and 2105 were left to assess eligibility with another two additional papers considered for inclusion using snowballing. Two independent reviewers screened all titles and abstracts, and 39 free full-text papers were selected for a comprehensive reading, from which 12 were excluded due to ineligible outcome or context. (Please refer to Appendix D ).

The 27 studies selected for inclusion were exported from Rayyan to a free online version of Zotero, a references management tool far more effective than Endnote or Mendeley, as recently their last versions have been causing some disruptions.

The results of the search are fully reported in the present scoping review and presented in a Preferred Reporting Items for systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) checklist [ 23 ], which will clarify the process. (Please refer to Appendix A ).

5.2. Characteristics of Included Studies

A total of 11 of the 27 studies were from European countries, 3 of which were conducted in the United Kingdom (UK), 1 of them in partnership with the Netherlands, and 1 with Belgium. However, most studies were from the American continent, seven of which were from the United States (one of them in partnership with Brazil), five were from Canada (one of them in partnership with the Netherlands and the UK), two were from Australia, and one study was from the Philippines. There is also one study from South Africa. (Please refer to Scheme 1 ).

Geographical location of the studies.

Regarding the year of the studies, and although the inclusion criteria focus on studies since 2005, the authors paid special attention to more contemporary data and found 20 relevant studies from 2015 onwards, two being from 2022, four from 2021, two from 2020 and five from 2019. The minority of studies, although relevant, refer to 2008 up to 2012.

Only 6 of these 27 studies used interviews as a qualitative method [ 13 , 17 , 19 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. Three studies were systematic reviews [ 29 , 30 , 31 ], three were case-study analyses [ 18 , 32 , 33 ], another three used surveys and questionnaires as quantitative methods [ 34 , 35 , 36 ], two used integrative baseline reviews [ 2 , 37 ] and another three studies utilized a process model design as a method [ 20 , 38 , 39 ]. In eight studies [ 15 , 20 , 26 , 28 , 30 , 31 , 35 , 40 ], the main aim was to assess public health adaptive approaches and preparedness to tackle climate change; in five studies [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 27 , 34 ], the main aim was to discuss current city policies and solutions on the topic.

Flow diagram for the scoping review process adapted from the PRISMA statement by Moher and colleagues [ 41 ].

5.3. Review Findings

5.3.1. populations.

The authors identified seven groups of populations in the present review. Six studies refer to one of them: local, public, and private stakeholders [ 18 , 19 , 35 , 39 , 42 , 43 ]; four of them focus on the population group of municipalities or local governments [ 13 , 28 , 31 , 42 ]; four target the population group of cities and city council representatives [ 27 , 29 , 38 , 44 ]; another four focus on public health services and professionals [ 20 , 26 , 36 , 40 ]; scientists and experts were also part of the focus of one particular study [ 27 ], and finally citizens [ 34 ] and community leaders [ 16 ] were also the population of choice in two other studies. It can be said that the studies included have mainly targeted local, public, and private stakeholders as their population [ 18 , 19 , 35 , 39 , 42 , 43 ], followed by public health services [ 20 , 26 , 36 , 40 ], local and regional governments [ 13 , 28 , 31 , 38 ], city authorities [ 27 , 29 , 38 , 44 ], scientists and experts [ 27 ], and citizens [ 34 ] or community leaders [ 16 ].

5.3.2. Contexts

The selected studies had “community settings” as an inclusion criteria requirement, hence we can confirm that 55,6% of the studies selected for inclusion focused on community contexts [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 19 , 20 , 26 , 28 , 30 , 32 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 40 , 42 , 43 ], and the remainder of them were specifically targeted to urban settings [ 2 , 8 , 13 , 18 , 27 , 29 , 31 , 33 , 34 , 38 , 39 , 44 ]. Rural contexts were excluded due to inclusion criteria. All findings were categorised according to the review questions.

5.3.3. Review Question 1—Types of Community Actions

For Review Question 1, detailed key information about each community action led or implemented by stakeholders differ among studies, mostly depending on the type of stakeholders involved. Below, and following Bardin’s [ 45 ] concept of “ categories a posteriori ”, readers may find a synthesis obtained once results were interpreted, with a presentation of inferences in the form of final categories for community actions contributing to the empowerment of communities, found in the present review. (Please refer to Scheme 2 ):

• Actions of political scope [ 8 , 13 , 16 , 17 , 19 , 20 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 31 , 33 , 34 , 37 , 40 , 43 , 44 ] (local, regional, national, and European) are referred to in 17 of the selected studies; mainly, these actions include top-down interventions such as city management and planning, local/regional/national/European policies and control, recommendations, energy solutions, urban planning (street widths, off-street trails for cyclists and pedestrians, neighbourhood playgrounds and parks, sporting and recreational facilities), implementation of policies that support physical activity and active living, improved laws and traffic safety, adaptative measures to extreme weather and other climate variability, projects to protect residents, integration of nature-based solutions that improve microclimate, limit urban heat and improve air quality, increasing green urban spaces, promote active transport, fiscal and regulatory measures, underground parking, leisure parks, flood defences, review flood maps, review cooling capacity on local facilities and backup generators, review insurance policies, claiming leadership, implementing low carbon society, work in partnership with multistakeholder groups, translate science to lay audience, evaluate local adaptation plans, improve public transport networks, mandatory vehicle inspections, road charges, reduce speed of vehicles, and walking to school policies, among others.
• Actions of community scope [ 2 , 8 , 16 , 17 , 19 , 26 , 28 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 39 , 40 , 42 , 43 ] mentioned in 14 of the selected studies mainly include bottom-up actions such as the ones resulting of social movements and cohesion by maintaining the community identity and culture, as well as actions resulting from partnerships, capacity building, and interagency efforts at the community level. Actions such as democratic participation and risk awareness programs are also a key part of the community scope.
• Actions based on public health and environmental health [ 2 , 8 , 16 , 18 , 19 , 27 , 30 , 31 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 40 , 44 ] are also referred to in 15 studies, mainly as hybrid actions, a result of the combination between top-down and bottom-up interventions; these actions involve public health and environmental health promotion and implementation of programs, health sector leadership related actions as well as analysing sub-district vulnerabilities, emergency preparedness, warning and observation systems, monitoring processes and risk awareness, promoting cycling and walking, encouraging children to play, marketing through media the benefits of physical activity, promoting new workplace practices to prevent sedentarism at work, promoting exercise within vulnerable groups, providing education, and training for intersectorial sustainability, improving epidemiological surveillance, assessing heat vulnerability in homebound populations, ensuring mosquito surveillance, implementing interventions in faith-based communities, monitoring severe weather predictions, educating population on health and safety on extreme weather events (through websites, webpages, hotlines, and others), encouraging health staff to collaborate with universities on climate change adaptation, coordinating for shared knowledge, raising awareness to climate change, providing updated international guidelines on heat-health plans, and ensuring surveillance of endemic and emerging diseases, as strategies to the empowerment of the community on climate-related mitigation and adaptation.
• Actions based on resource management [ 8 , 13 , 17 , 20 , 37 , 40 , 44 ] are mentioned in seven of the studies and mainly refer to housing energy efficiency measures, an equitable allocation of energy resources, known as energy democracy, that leads to sustainable consumption, reflecting the abovementioned combination of top-down and bottom-up (hybrid) actions. The use of renewable energy and water conservation systems are key in managing resources effectively.
• Actions based on science and research [ 16 , 18 , 27 , 28 , 31 , 33 ] are cited in six studies referring to an investment in informing communities and communicating climate action science and research results that can support populations with mitigating climate change impacts or promoting adaptative strategies. Research actions promote change, involving and empowering communities in developing new behaviors and climate action practices, and providing technical support for multisector planning efforts, which is why such examples are mainly presented as hybrid approaches.
• Economy-based actions [ 19 , 39 , 42 ] have references in three studies, mainly as a result of a combination of both top-down and bottom-up actions as they relate to adaptation strategies and improvement in production processes, sustainable business practices, sustainably produced food, use of sustainable technology and fuel improvements, introduction of electric cars, increase in cash income, among others.
• Funding-related actions [ 16 , 19 , 33 ] refer to fundraising, affecting all levels (local, regional, national, and European) and attracting financial investors and developers from all areas to engage with the research sector to adapt strategies and with society in general, sharing key information for the empowerment of communities. These are referred to in three studies and mainly represent a combination of both top-down and bottom-up actions.

Types of community empowerment actions to prevent climate change.

5.3.4. Review Question 2—Characterisation of Community Actions

For Review Question 2, the authors concluded that all types of community actions mentioned above can be divided according to their characteristics. Consequently, and agreeing with the models’ discussion by Melo [ 7 ], political actions (of local, regional, national, or European scope) are mainly characterised as top-down interventions. Community actions mainly reflect the bottom-up model of interventions; and public health and environmental actions, science and research actions, resource management actions, economy-related actions, and funding-based actions, all mainly point to a hybrid approach of community interventions. In the present review, 85% of the studies display a total of 42 references to top-down approach interventions, 63% percent display a total of 19 references to a hybrid approach, whilst 18,5% display a total of 5 references to bottom-up actions. (Please refer to Scheme 3 below).

Community actions characterisation according to the models of management for community intervention [ 7 ].

5.3.5. Review Question 3—Stakeholders

For Review Question 3, 14 categories of stakeholders were identified, 4 of which were more cited than others as they are more frequently involved in climate change prevention by leading or implementing a diverse range of community actions and community empowerment.

Therefore, most of the studies selected, 21, refer to local governments and municipalities as key stakeholders [ 8 , 13 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 26 , 27 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 42 , 43 , 44 ]. These are then followed by the civil society [ 8 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 38 , 39 , 42 , 43 ], namely community associations and leaders, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and volunteers, and citizens being mentioned in 13 of the selected studies. Universities and academic settings [ 8 , 16 , 18 , 27 , 32 , 35 , 40 , 42 , 44 , 46 ] follow, as they play a significant role as well, being mentioned in 10 of the selected studies. Equally referred to in nine of the selected studies, the public health sector [ 2 , 20 , 26 , 28 , 30 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ], and the private sector [ 8 , 13 , 18 , 33 , 34 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 43 ] both stand out as key elements in climate change adaptive capacity or climate change mitigation strategies. Within the public sector, the studies referred to heads of departments, public health professionals, and officials. The private sector references are particularly made of companies in general, banking, other financial institutions and business leaders and developers. The other nine categories are listed as follows: national/federal government [ 8 , 20 , 26 , 28 , 34 , 40 ], regional/provincial/state government [ 8 , 28 , 40 ], professional organisations and unions [ 8 , 19 ], school representatives and educators [ 16 , 34 ], emergency services and firefighters [ 38 ], European Parliament/Commission/Council [ 15 ], European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) [ 15 ], transport sector [ 37 ], and electrical and fuel providers [ 2 ]. (Please refer to Scheme 4 below).

Types of stakeholders identified in the selected studies.

6. Discussion

The comprehensive literature search of articles published between 2005 and 2022 retrieved 27 relevant studies identifying several categories of community actions, as well as stakeholders involved aiming to mitigate or adapt to climate change. Although the number of studies encountered seems high, none of them presents an overview of the global climate attitude within communities, hence the reason for the present review.

Our study reinforces existing but limited literature on a global perspective for community plans and actions to mitigate or adapt to climate change- (please refer to Figure 3 ). Strategies such as deep decarbonization plans and actions are currently underway around the globe, and the present review demonstrates how and by whom these can be developed and implemented at local, regional, national, and international levels, whilst overcoming local authority limitations through leveraging partnerships, allowing mitigation targets to be reached.

Overview of identified populations with corresponding contexts, types of community actions led or implemented, characterization of community actions according to each community intervention model and stakeholders involved.

Therefore, Gimenez et al. [ 38 ] discuss the importance of assigning climate-related coordination responsibilities to a specific department, by setting up a multi-stakeholder group, involving local government, emergency services, firefighters, officers, public health managers, researchers, citizens, and others who can work together, applying research-based actions for multisector collaborative plans in tackling climate change [ 32 ].

Although in some locations this has not yet been implemented in a structured way, generally, the main objective of stakeholders is to build resilient and climate-neutral cities [ 33 ]. However, where higher-level governments are not likely to tackle climate change, local elected representatives and citizen groups tend to adopt impressive climate strategies [ 17 ].

Unfortunately, in 30% of the cases, mitigation and adaptation processes are linked to the political will [ 26 ] at several levels, which means that sustainable and resilient solutions may not be implemented.

Nevertheless, local authorities with a leading attitude seem to focus on five priority sectors: electricity, buildings, transport, waste and carbon sinks, and storage [ 13 ] to reach their GHG mitigation targets. Therefore, sustainable transport policies [ 39 ], restrictions on the use of cars, improvement of the public transport networks, tolls [ 29 ], electric cars [ 44 ], improved production systems [ 42 ], pedestrian friendly policies [ 42 ], and other environmental policies [ 27 ] are some of the political actions in place.

The modern way of life, though, entails elevated levels of inactivity and the absence of outdoor urban environment policy; both lead to a wide range of chronic diseases. When healthier and environmentally friendly urban spaces are made available for leisure time for physical activities, these meet the citizens needs and desires for green active living [ 34 ] and foster local social cohesion, avoiding polarization and health disparities. This is confirmed by Arlati et al. [ 18 ] when referring to NbS as of great interest among community actions, contributing to unite people within their neighbourhoods and cities, promoting resilience and mutual sustainable growth. Thaler et al. [ 19 ] corroborate these types of actions referring to the implementation of NbS as key political actions and to urbanization planning actions, such as underground parking, as fundamental to release the surface for communal activities such as parks, cycling roads, etc.

However, the world needs to remember that each community has its unique background, culture, traditions, and priorities, and when it comes to adaptation processes, local authorities and other stakeholders need to acknowledge these variants as key. As an example, people from the island nation of Tokelau [ 16 ], hit by a hurricane in the 1960s, were forced to relocate, resulting in a loss of identity, language, practices, culture, and way of life. Nonmaterial elements such as the ones mentioned above are fundamental within communities and require acknowledgment prior to climate-related actions, such as relocation plans. In these cases, research-based actions need to guide political actions supported by sectorial experts, local development agencies, academia, and civil society.

Therefore, it is unmistakably noted that the ongoing development and implementation of community actions towards climate change are still mainly characterised by singular top-down imposition; nevertheless, a growing trend is now building, reflecting a higher focus on hybrid approaches [ 38 ], where the active participation of key community-based stakeholders, other that public institutions, seems to follow a combination of both top-down and bottom-up models of intervention in the community.

Although we seem far from the ideal reality, a wide range of initiatives are now aligned with what is known as “ triple-duty actions , and local level engagement seems essential to fight climate change [ 37 ]. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) claims that policies in areas such as transport, food, and energy should be focused on the community’s ecological and human well-being by using the triple win climate lens framework [ 46 ], as per Figure 4 below.

The “triple win” UK government framework for projects to deliver on enhancing biodiversity, addressing climate change and reducing poverty [ 46 ].

The governments of Scotland and New Zealand are also applying “economies of well-being”, and the Lancet publication [ 47 ] on food and consumption advocated for more “triple-duty” actions. This is aligned with Raworth and his “doughnut economy” [ 48 ], also consistent with the concepts of planetary boundaries [ 5 ].

When it comes to the well-being of people, several authors refer to public institutions, such as local health departments, as relevant stakeholders. By using a top-down intervention model, they are in the best position to assess the community’s vulnerability by assessing homebound populations and their vulnerability to extreme heat, by improving epidemiologic surveillance, by developing mosquito surveillance [ 35 ], by monitoring infectious diseases [ 15 ] among others. Likewise, other studies highlight the importance of the health sector as a climate-related stakeholder as it can provide appropriate training for healthcare workers and public health practitioners, developing expertise and raising awareness on disaster preparedness and response, key strategy plans to face the climate challenge [ 30 ]. Rychetnik et al. [ 20 ] emphasised that using opportunities to enhance health information on extreme weather events or by leading direct public education on climate-related risks and health and safety seem to be a part of the key role of public health services as climate stakeholders, who can use data sources and models to predict, prepare for, and respond to those risks. Similarly, these authors highlight the importance of building collaborative relationships with other stakeholders, such as academics, bringing together health staff and university experts and researchers working to develop CC adaptation plans. Other authors corroborate this by highlighting the need for disseminating usable knowledge [ 28 ], raising climate-related awareness [ 43 ], contributing to effective communication and intervention strategies to reduce heat-related mortality [ 2 ], influencing community practices and behaviors [ 31 ], and informing, educating and empowering people about climate-related health issues [ 40 ].

However, the public health sector can extend actions even further by using media marketing to recommend reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions [ 36 ], working alongside the resource management sector to ensure water conservation and with local business stakeholders to promote sustainable business practices in the community [ 39 ].

7. Limitations of the Study

Although the present study could have been enhanced with the inclusion of an international database and could have included further languages other than Portuguese and English, the authors believe that the objectives of the present work were achieved as they map the state of the art and existing literature on the topic; therefore, despite its limitations, a scoping review was the appropriate method to achieve the conclusions below.

8. Conclusions

The present review identified 27 relevant studies responding to the objective and to the review questions initially stated in our work. Data analysed and extracted show that further research is required to identify the effectiveness of climate-related stakeholder collaboration processes, specifically in urban contexts, and to develop a shared and global strategic guidance tool in tackling climate change within communities.

Seven types of community actions were acknowledged as being led and implemented across the globe, including political scope, community scope, public health and environmental health, resource management, science, and research, economy-based, and funding-related. Political actions such as the ones developed by local government authorities, community actions such as the ones led by NGOs and other organisations and the actions of public health and environmental health are the leading stakeholders, alongside universities and the private sector.

The community intervention models used were mostly focused on a hybrid approach by using a combination of both top-down and bottom-up intervention models. Public health services and professionals, alongside scientists and experts, city council representatives, citizens, and community leaders play vital roles.

Public health authorities are key stakeholders in increasing populations’ resilience to the health impacts of climate change and in contributing to reduce the population’s vulnerability. As local public authorities, they hold full knowledge of the local population and full awareness of the localized nature of climate change impacts.

We can conclude that comprehensive public participation should always be facilitated and fully recommended as the only way to inspire communities towards making a difference, acting, and engaging in decision-making processes for a sustainable development by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050.

It is therefore vital that future government authorities continue to inform, consult, and engage public and private stakeholders through meetings and public conferences to bring together shared decision processes. It is also vital to continue to monitor the participatory process and ensure transparency and active participation from all parties involved. This will allow the identification of gaps and necessary adjustments. Finally, a full assessment of the whole participatory process, ensuring the engagement of all stakeholders must be conducted.

Involving experts to guide how to maximize environmental benefits from a public health perspective, implementing specific actions within the community and using intersectoral design teams will certainly empower communities in improving energy efficiency but mostly in achieving sustainable living targets with a positive impact on people’s health.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank João Dias, Guilherme Canhão and Maria Perdigão from the Library services at Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon Campus for all their support with the use of databases on the present manuscript.

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) Checklist.

From: [ 23 ].

Search Strategy. Searches conducted from 1 January 2005, 7 March 2022.

NOTE: For CINAHL and MEDLINE, MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) were used in the searches.

Data Extraction Tool with the Characteristics of the Studies Included.

Appendix D. Studies Ineligible following Full-Text Review

• Aguiar, F.C., J. Bentz, J.M.N. Silva, A.L. Fonseca, R. Swart, F.D. Santos, and G. Penha-Lopes. ‘Adaptation to Climate Change at Local Level in Europe: An Overview’. Environmental Science and Policy 86 (2018): 38–63.

Reason for exclusion: Ineligible context (includes rural areas)

• 2. Oates, J., and L.A. Dodds. ‘An Approach for Effective Stakeholder Engagement as an Essential Component of the Ecosystem Approach’. ICES Journal of Marine Science 74, no. 1 (2017): 391–97.

Reason for exclusion: No work-related outcome

• 3. Kati, V., and N. Jari. ‘Bottom-up Thinking-Identifying Socio-Cultural Values of Ecosystem Services in Local Blue-Green Infrastructure Planning in Helsinki, Finland’. Land Use Policy 50 (2016): 537–47.
• 4. Hahn, MB, C Kemp, C Ward-Waller, S Donovan, JI Schmidt, and S Bauer. ‘Collaborative Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Planning with University, Community, and Municipal Partners: A Case Study in Anchorage, Alaska’. LOCAL ENVIRONMENT 25, no. 9 (2020): 648–65.
• 5. Tonmoy, F.N., S.M. Cooke, F. Armstrong, and D. Rissik. ‘From Science to Policy: Development of a Climate Change Adaptation Plan for the Health and Wellbeing Sector in Queensland, Australia’. Environmental Science and Policy 108 (2020): 1–13.
• 6. Mark, A ya, BG Armstrong, S Hales, A Chiabai, P Criqui, S Mima, C Tonne, and P Wilkinson. ‘Health and Climate Change 3 Public Health Benefits of Strategies to Reduce Greenhouse-Gas Emissions: Low-Carbon Electricity Generation’. LANCET 374, no. 9706 (2009): 2006–15.
• 7. Olowoporoku, D., E. Hayes, J. Longhurst, and G. Parkhurst. ‘Improving Road Transport-Related Air Quality in England through Joint Working between Environmental Health Officers and Transport Planners’. Local Environment 16, no. 7 (2011): 603–18.
• 8. Setiajiati, F., B. Karyaatmadja, I. Sutedja, H. Kuswondho, P. Satria, Sejati, R.S. Maharani, Anria, Yusara A., and Kartikaningsih W. ‘Lesson Learned from Social Forestry Practice in a Forest and Climate Change Project in Kalimantan, Indonesia’ 363, no. 1 (2019). https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85077444310&doi=10.1088%2f1755-1315%2f363%2f1%2f012001&partnerID=40&md5=550b3adb3b0f604d37794913e87413f4 (accessed on 2 November 2022).
• 9. V, Hongoh, Michel P, Gosselin P, Samoura K, Ravel A, Campagna C, Cissé HD, and Waaub JP. ‘Multi-Stakeholder Decision Aid for Improved Prioritization of the Public Health Impact of Climate Sensitive Infectious Diseases.’ International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 13, no. 4 (2016): 419.
• 10. Bayar, D.Y., H. Guven, H. Badem, E.S. Sengor, Karas I.R., Ben Ahmed M., Boudhir A.A., and Ane B.K. ‘National Smart Cities Strategy and Action Plan: The Turkey’s Smart Cities Approach’ 44, no. 4 (2020): 129–35.
• 11. Barten, F., M. Akerman, D. Becker, S. Friel, T. Hancock, M. Mwatsama, M. Rice, S. Sheuya, and R. Stern. ‘Rights, Knowledge, and Governance for Improved Health Equity in Urban Settings’. Journal of Urban Health 88, no. 5 (2011): 896–905.
• 12. Irel, P., and F. Thomalla. ‘The Role of Collective Action in Enhancing Communities’ Adaptive Capacity to Environmental Risk: An Exploration of Two Case Studies from Asia’. PLoS Currents, 2011. https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84867468146&doi=10.1371%2fcurrents.RRN1279&partnerID=40&md5=cad9c4e65511cd9d43eeb52e84858b60 (accessed on 2 November 2022).

Funding Statement

This research was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, Project HAC4CG_6-Heritage, Art, Creation for Climate Change. Living the city: catalysing spaces for learning, creation, and action towards climate change RL3 WP 6-HAC4-CG (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000067).

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, M.J.S.C. and P.M.; methodology, M.J.S.C., R.S. and P.M.; validation, R.S. and P.M.; investigation, M.J.S.C.; resources, M.J.S.C. and V.M.; visualization, M.J.S.C.; project administration, A.L. and P.M.; funding acquisition, P.M.; writing—original draft preparation, M.J.S.C., A.L., V.M. and P.M.; writing—review and editing, M.J.S.C., A.L., R.S., V.M. and P.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Edwards’ latest studies shed light on climate-tech needs

May was a big month for Assistant Professor Morgan Edwards , as she published two important climate technology studies. These new papers could provide timely insights into the development of technologies that must scale rapidly to meet the needs of the warming planet and the 2015 Paris Agreement established to limit global temperature increases.

Assessing direct air capture with carbon storage technology

On May 6, a study co-led by Edwards and PhD student Zachary Thomas debuted in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . The research found that direct air capture with carbon storage (DACCS) could help remove nearly five gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) by midcentury if the emerging technology, which uses chemicals to capture the heat-trapping gas directly from the air, develops at a rate similar to other technologies that grew quickly in the past.

“Countries around the world and many other actors – from local governments to corporations to universities – are setting net zero targets,” Edwards says. “We know we will need to rapidly reduce CO 2 emissions at the source, but technologies like DACCS that can remove CO 2 directly from the atmosphere could also play an important role.”

The international team of researchers working on Edwards’ project also included La Follette Professor Gregory Nemet and La Follette alum Jenna Greene (MPA ’22), now a PhD student with the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

Read more about this study

Corporate investments boost climate-tech startups

On May 15, a  new study  co-authored by Edwards was published in Nature Energy . This research, led by Assistant Research Professor Kathleen Kennedy of the Center for Global Sustainability in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, found that corporate investments into climate-tech start-ups coupled with public and other private funding can expedite the deployment of new technologies. Edwards and her co-authors hope that this research can help policymakers develop more effective strategies for incentivizing the innovation needed to address the climate crisis.

“This analysis addresses a critical knowledge gap on the effects of growing corporate investments on the success of climate-tech,” Edwards says. “We find that corporate investment is consistently associated with higher rates of exits, and in recent years corporate investment is not correlated with failure, indicating that corporations may have learned from earlier losses and could play a larger role in supporting climate-tech moving forward.”

Next up, Edwards, Nemet, and other study coauthors will share additional insights on climate-tech innovation when they release the second edition of the  State of Carbon Dioxide Removal  report on June 4, 2024.

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• Published: 21 May 2024

Multi-decadal climate services help farmers assess and manage future risks

• Yuwan Malakar   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9067-7108 1 ,
• Stephen Snow   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8408-0153 1 ,
• Aysha Fleming   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9895-1928 2 ,
• Simon Fielke   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1166-231X 1 ,
• Emma Jakku 1 ,
• Carly Tozer   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8605-5907 2 &
• Rebecca Darbyshire   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4712-8514 3  

Nature Climate Change ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Agriculture
• Projection and prediction

Climate services can support on-farm decisions, yet this potential is currently not fully realized. Here, using a participatory qualitative risk analysis framework, we introduced 24 Australian farmers to My Climate View, an Australian online, multi-decadal climate service, and asked them to identify, assess and discuss management of long-term risks in light of its projections. We found that multi-decadal projections can help farmers to better understand future climate risks, potentially reducing the psychological distance of climate change. The use of long-term climate projections, however, can be impeded by lack of confidence in data, so leveraging the expertise of trusted service providers may help boost farmers’ confidence. Finally, though climate services providing multi-decadal projections can help farmers to identify future climate risks, they require interactive and recurring engagement to turn awareness into action.

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In 2009, the Global Framework for Climate Services was established to address climate risks through cohesive implementation of better ‘climate services’ 1 , leading to an increase in climate services development. Climate services is a collective term for the generation and provision of climate information tailored to user decision-making needs 2 . However, despite initial promise, questions remain about climate services’ direct benefits to society 3 , 4 . Key challenges include a lack of equitable access to climate services, and inadequate interactions between users and climate service providers 5 . Three key tensions hinder the successful rollout of climate services: (1) a focus more on producing climate service products rather than understanding processes of use or pathways to impact; (2) the development of climate services based on assumed demand rather than directly responding to user preferences; and (3) economic evaluation of climate services rather than real-world outcomes. In this Article, we empirically explore these challenges from the perspectives of potential users of climate services.

The scope of climate services is broad. Here, we focus on multi-decadal climate projections (20+ years) in the future (also referred to as long-term projections in the subsequent sections). We also focus on applications in agriculture, one of the five priority areas for climate services identified by the Global Framework for Climate Services 6 .

Globally, the agriculture sector is facing serious consequences of climate change requiring both adaptation and mitigation 7 , 8 , and nations are increasingly investing in climate services targeting farmers 9 , 10 . Studies have explored farmers’ risk perceptions and their use of climate services, including short-term weather (1–14 days) and seasonal forecasts (3–6 months) 11 , 12 . However, there is limited literature demonstrating how the agricultural sector uses multi-decadal projections to manage long-term risk 3 , 13 . Hence, the utility of multi-decadal climate projections in farming is far less obvious than near-term climate information 3 . We attempt to address this gap with the research question ‘how would multi-decadal projections affect farmers’ risk management decisions pertaining to future climate risks?’. We use an Australian case study of the climate service, My Climate View (MyCV), and conduct 24 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with farmers from different geographic locations and across multiple commodities.

Australian farmers are already responding to climate variability and extreme events, such as bushfires, floods and droughts 14 , 15 . Climate services providing climate projections to Australian farmers are increasingly becoming available ( Supplementary Note 1 ). The Australian Government through the Future Drought Fund is investing $29 million in the Climate Services for Agriculture (CSA) programme from 2020–2024, jointly implemented by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology 16 . MyCV, a product of the CSA programme, is a national-scale service that provides local, agriculturally relevant historical climate data and future climate projections for the 2030s, 2050s and 2070s in one tool (see Supplementary Note 2 for further details). Other Australian climate service products currently available are specific to either a single location or a commodity group.

Barriers exist to using multi-decadal projections informing on-farm decisions, including (1) limited availability to agricultural sector-specific needs 3 , (2) limited relevance to farmers’ focus on shorter-term decision horizons 17 , 18 and (3) the ‘psychological distance’ of connecting large global changes with individual experience of the present 19 . The concept of psychological distance, noted as a barrier to climate change action 20 , 21 , contends that individuals only experience here and now, with themselves at the centre, and any other experience with other objects and people occurs at mentally constructed distance 22 . To link climate change more directly with the here and now, this paper aims to explore whether climate services with localized and commodity-specific multi-decadal climate projections can assist farmers to identify future climate risks and make decisions to manage those risks. This makes MyCV an ideal case study.

To address this, we developed a participatory qualitative risk analysis framework (Fig. 1 ), inspired by the concept of action research—a method that allows the examination of an issue as well as the identification of solutions in a participatory way 23 . This qualitative approach allows deeper engagement with participants to facilitate understanding of risk perceptions and management decision-making. The framework consists of three major components of risk analysis: risk identification, risk assessment and risk management 24 , 25 . We used this framework to engage research participants in four steps to identify, assess and discuss management of future climate risks in a participatory way (Fig. 1 ).

The framework follows four steps: (1) Identification of short-term risks including risks currently experienced, such as extreme daily and multi-day rainfall, frosts and very wet or dry seasons. (2) Identification of long-term future climate risks (20+ years), either before (2.1) or after (2.3) the introduction of MyCV (2.2). Through this process, we discussed the changes in risk perceptions pre- and post-MyCV, which was a critical step to understand the role of MyCV in informing long-term decisions. (3) Risk assessment involved in identifying the impacts future climate risks (post-MyCV) might have on agriculture. This included participants assessing hazards, severity and consequences on their farm business 45 . (4) Risk management involved in identifying strategies to reduce the impacts of future climate risks (post-MyCV). Participants were asked what they would do differently to manage future risks that came to light from the MyCV projections. Participants in this step identify interventions to address the adverse impacts of risks through proactive planning and engagement 46 .

Risk identification

Participants detailed risks associated with weather and climate hazards across short-term and long-term timescales, which were categorized into four groups based on the order of complexity associated with their consequences, likelihood and scale (Table 1 ). Our analysis of risk draws from ref. 26 .

The unshaded area shows short-term risks, and the shaded area shows long-term risks pre- and post-MyCV. For the short term, risks were categorized mainly into known and uncertain risks. In the long term, risks pre-MyCV were mostly identified as either ambiguous or unknown, followed by known, and only a few identified uncertain risks. Thus, participants perceived long-term climate risks as more complex than current risks. The range of risks post-MyCV was narrower than pre-MyCV and were categorized into only two types of risk: known and uncertain. This indicated that the climate information provided by MyCV helped participants to reduce their perceived complexities of future risks. The data points within the risk categories indicates individual participants identifying risks belonging to the risk category. Participants were allowed to identify multiple risk types across both timescales. Our analysis explored whether these risk categories would vary across business, climatic zones and commodities ( Supplementary Note 3 ).

The risks identified by the participants across the two timescales have a varying level of complexities (Fig. 2 ). Two types of risk, known and uncertain, were identified in the short term. Most participants knew existing hazards and the resulting consequences to their farm. Various hazards were discussed, such as variations in winter chilling requirements, fungal diseases caused by humidity, and lack of rainfall, and their effects on the yield. For instance, a broadacre cropping farmer described a short-term risk, which we classified as known risk, as, “…lack of rainfall is obviously the bigger issue…the wet season finishing too early…the effect on…cutting an irrigation crop off a bit early. It just means reduced yield” [F18]. Participants also identified uncertain risks, which were mainly linked with hazards that were sudden-onset and extreme events, such as hail, extreme heat and extreme rain. For example, one mixed cropping–livestock farmer described the effects of extreme rain and heat events, which we classified as an uncertain risk: “if you get too much water in winter, it [field] can get waterlogged…if it dries up in spring, it [crop] won’t flower that much…if it’s raining too much in December like it tends to these days…that can affect getting the crop harvested…” [F14].

The perceived complexity of the long-term risks pre-demonstration of MyCV (pre-MyCV) was greater than that of the short-term risks. It included all categories of risks, ambiguous risks to the most extent and uncertain risks to a lesser extent. Participants who were more certain about future climate risks mostly spoke about the climate getting drier and hotter. Some also stated that the climate was going to remain unchanged. Only two farmers identified risks that were categorized as uncertain. In relation to ambiguous risks, participants described perceived trends in climate change as a combination of hazards with uncertain scale and consequences. A cropping and livestock farmer said, “… volatile probably. I suppose more extreme. So, more hot spells, more heavy torrential rain hence less consistency in weather” [F17]. Additionally, participants considered climate change a psychologically distant phenomenon and hence described that future risks are unknown, as one livestock farmer stated, “I actually don’t know. I think…the changes [in climate] are over such a long period of time that I don’t think I would personally notice much of a change in 20 years” [F20].

After the MyCV demonstration (post-MyCV), the range of future climate risks narrowed to two categories, as opposed to the four pre-MyCV. Most identified known risks, followed by uncertain risks. One viticulturist explained a decreasing frost risk and said, “…there will be less frost risk because some of the heat-resilient varieties actually start growing from winter sooner…So, hedging our bets on the frost risk decreasing” [F22]. Participants also spoke about risks with a high level of uncertainty. For example, while referring to the decreasing rainfall trend in the projections, another viticulturist said, “…just being aware of the impact it may have on aquifer recharge…will the water be available if there isn’t the recharge over a long time and our water allocations are cut. How’s that going to look in terms of that early season period?” [F19]. Participants being able to identify specific future climate risks to their business post-MyCV can potentially be seen as an example of a reduced psychological distance to climate change and action.

Risk assessment

The risk assessment phase only involved assessing the impacts of long-term risks post-MyCV (both known and uncertain combined). Five themes were identified, on the basis of participants’ assessment of risks, which depicted the strategic assessment of impacts rather than the short-term business operation (Fig. 3 ).

The coloured circles represent risk assessment subthemes; the size indicates the frequency of these subthemes being discussed by participants (↑ size of circle means ↑ frequency). The grey circles represent individual participants. The links show individual participants identifying a subtheme or subthemes. MyCV prompted participants to think about their business in the future and their commodities under future scenarios. We also examined whether these risk assessment themes would vary across businesses, climatic zones and commodities ( Supplementary Note 4 ).

Participants shared their opinions about their confidence in the data, diverging in some cases. Some thought that making such climate information available for farmers was good, but they expressed some scepticism. One viticulturist explained, “you’ve got to take it [projections] with a grain of salt, but it’s better than no information” [F19]. Participants also questioned the accuracy of multi-decadal projections. Other participants showed confidence in the projections and gave two reasons why. First, trust in the service provider was identified as critical, as one farmer clarified, “I wouldn’t have a problem with trusting that information…I trust the Bureau of Meteorology” [F4]. Second, participant’s confidence seemed to be high if the projections match their perceptions, explained by one farmer, “I have to say 100% yes, because my instinct[s] were telling me what we’ve seen on the data” [F15].

All participants engaged in assessing the impacts on their business. Most discussed the impacts on their commodities; some found no impacts while some saw negative effects due to change in future climate parameters. One livestock farmer expressed, “that’s worrying, like how many stock are going to die if we get five days above 40 degrees” [F14]. Another farmer, at a different location, found the projections of annual hot days were not too concerning, as they said, “it’s really still not going to worry us. I think when you get above 35 °C is when you might have some issues, but the fact that we can’t even get over 30 gives us the confidence…” [F16]. This demonstrates that the same climate projections could have vastly different impacts on business depending on the scale of change, risk tolerance and individual perceptions.

Participants assessed their existing capacity to deal with long-term risks identified post-MyCV; some believed they have adequate capacity to manage the risks, while others reflected on needing additional measures going forward. For instance, one mixed cropping–livestock farmer said, “I don’t think there’s much more we could do to plan for that increase in heat. We’ve done what we can already” [F11]. Another farmer explained not having capacity to install irrigation in response to projections of decreased rainfall because they “are not on a natural waterway and have to pump from eight kilometres away to fill the big dam” [F13].

Participants assessed the suitability of their location for their current operation in the future. When asked what the projections would mean for them, one participant said, “I’d think that that chart would tell me that I’m in the right area [for my crop]” [F5]. Some compared different locations to find how other regions that grow the same crop might be affected, as one apple farmer said, “I’d be interested in going to have a look at this [My Climate View] to see what it’s going to do to other farms…compared to what mine is going to be like. That’d make me think about business decisions going on in the future” [F8].

Water requirements for their business, for example, sources of irrigation, water allocations, filling existing dams and ways to irrigate crops, were frequently discussed. One farmer questioned, “If it is going to be dry, then where do we source our water from?” [F1]. Another farmer further added, “…because of the increasing heat, I now have to have two forms of irrigation” [F12]. Some expressed their confidence in their existing irrigation sources, as one said, “we’ve got more water than we need at the moment, so hopefully that [less rainfall] won’t be so much of an issue” [F17].

Risk management

Participants discussed various approaches to managing long-term risks (both known and uncertain combined), informed by MyCV, which we grouped into five themes (Fig. 4 ). They identified changes to their farming practices and their commodities to stay in business by, for example, efficiently managing irrigation, retaining soil moisture, altering fruit harvesting time and adjusting livestock numbers. For example, one viticulturist said, “maintain irrigation systems…I’m definitely looking at [making] changes to our canopy management. Similarly, looking at soil health, so using composts and mulches to better utilise the moisture…” [F19]. Some participants expressed considering changing their commodities altogether. For instance, an avocado farmer observed that “We’ve done avocadoes for 40 years, and I think we do it pretty well, but if it gets to the stage where you can’t grow avocadoes, you’ve got to look at something else” [F12]. This farmer emphasized the complexity with a perennial crop because they require long-term planning, “…the trouble with a perennial crop like avocado is that you can’t say one year I’ve got avocadoes and the next I’m going to do something else. It’s a long timeframe…if you looked at that [projections] maybe you should come up with a 10-year plan to work on something else” [F12].

The coloured circles represent risk management subthemes; the size indicates the frequency of these subthemes discussed by participants (↑ size of circle means ↑ frequency). The grey circles represent individual participants. The links show individual participants identifying a subtheme or subthemes, which reflect strategic plans that participants perceived would help them to adapt their business to future climates. Supplementary Note 4 explores whether these risk management themes would vary across businesses, climatic zones and commodities.

Participants also discussed options for managing future business investments. One participant explained that they would discuss the projected risks in their board meeting “just so they can actually put that in the back of their minds for any of their long-term planning” [F10]. Similarly, another participant said, “…if you tell me the temperature is going to keep up and the rainfall is not, then I am already at the edge with everything that I have to consider not investing up here” [F15]. Future investments also included purchasing new machinery and building new infrastructure to manage future risks, such as adding overhead sprinklers, building new sheds for livestock to provide shade during extreme heat, and establishing more dams. For example, as rainfall declines were apparent in the projections, one farmer said, “…we need to look more at purchasing more water or establishing more dams…” [F9].

Participants also spoke about continuing their existing practices in the future for two reasons. First, if they did not identify new risks. One viticulturalist who was trialling heat-resilient grape varieties said, “it [the projection] tells me we’re probably doing the right thing looking for heat-tolerant varieties” [F22]. Additionally, some participants did not identify any risk management activities for those risks that they already have resources to address. For example, some were less worried about increasing temperature because they already have a reliable water supply. Second, participants who expressed low confidence in the projections were not entirely sure how to act on them. One sugarcane farmer said, “there’s probably not a lot of decision-making I can make on any of this climate data…we’ve just got to harvest when we can, and we stop when we can’t” [F5].

Our work has three major findings. First, our research suggests that MyCV can help farmers better understand future climate risks, through reducing complexity and potentially reducing psychological distance. This finding helps to contribute to the lack of empirical evidence about how multi-decadal projections can be operationalized in farm decisions 27 , 28 . The comparison between future climate risks pre- and post-MyCV was valuable to show the changes in risk perception after participants were introduced to contextualized climate information, which helped reduce their perceived complexities of future climate risks, that is, from ambiguous and unknown risks to known and uncertain risks. The pre-MyCV exercise provided a baseline to compare post-MyCV risk perceptions. This guided process helped participants to discuss the implications of climate projections for their commodity and region and use this information to assess the risks on their business and identify risk management plans, in terms of strategic rather than operational decisions 18 . Further, existing literature posits that localizing (and contextualizing) climate impacts can decrease psychological distance 29 , 30 . MyCV offers location-based and commodity-specific climate projections, which, we argue, played a vital role for participants to understand and identify some specific future climate risks to their business.

Second, we found that confidence in data is an important driver for participants to meaningfully interact with projections and subsequently identify future climate risks and actions to address them. It is not uncommon for farmers to express their scepticism towards climate change projections, and this is often based on their experience in perceptions of inaccurate short-term weather and seasonal forecasts 31 . Our research participants similarly reported their confidence in multi-decadal projections as low because of perceived limited accuracy in short-term forecasts (although we recognize there is no link between the accuracy of forecasts and the reliability of projections, participants evidently felt there to be a connection). Participants’ scepticism towards projections may also be a function of climate change scepticism generally 32 . The availability of online long-term climate projections is emerging but new, nonetheless 33 . Farmers are not as familiar with climate projections as they are with weather forecasts. Farmers’ planning cycles are generally short and are often more concerned with the here-and-now effects on their farm 18 .

All participants engaged in risk assessment and management discussions despite some raising views about low confidence in the data. This exemplifies that farmers’ confidence in climate projections can be addressed by providing sufficiently detailed and contextualized information through discussion and using the language and context they are familiar with. Additionally, participants expressed confidence in MyCV if the projections matched their lived experiences, which suggests that farmers’ perceptions should be an active point of discussion and connection for climate services. Our findings suggest that these connections will be important to ensure decision-making based on long-term projections. Participants spoke of their trust in service providers as a driver to establishing confidence in MyCV. Examples of advisors acting in an intermediary role to promote adoption of best agriculture conservation practices are well documented 34 , 35 . We therefore see value in leveraging the expertise of trusted service providers to boost confidence in multi-decadal climate projections via open discussion and dialogue 36 .

Third, climate information that scientists think is useful can be different to what is usable for users 37 , 38 . Although substantial scientific advancements have been made in the modelling of climate projections, making these digital tools usable requires the adoption of co-production principles in the design of climate services 37 , 39 . As digital tools, they provide climate information, which could help farmers to identify future climate risks, but turning awareness into action requires guidance and understanding of farmers’ specific contexts, which needs deeper and often sustained engagement. This aligns with policy documents and studies that call for building collaborative efforts with farmers to improve their practices 1 , 40 , 41 . Moreover, ref. 42 documented that such interactions play a profound role in the utility of long-term projections, particularly to assess and manage future risks, which, we argue, requires interactive and recurring engagement between trusted advisor and farmers (Fig. 5 ). Previous studies frequently show how it is the combination of relevant information, such as that provided by tailored decision support, with the ability to discuss, explore, test and experiment with different interpretations and management options, that empowers farmers to act 43 , 44 .

Climate services on their own are useful for risk identification but require interactive and recurring engagement to be made actionable through assessing and managing future climate risks. Interactive activities help build focused relationships between advisors and farmers, which is a foundation for building trust in institutions and confidence in data for farmers to act on. This systematic discussion of risk identification, assessment and management allowed the conversation to develop in a way that each step relied on the outcome of the previous step. This ‘guided discussion’ process would benefit from the expertise of professionals working directly with farmers through existing research and extension services, who have additional place-based knowledge and insight into farmers’ personal situations 36 , 47 .

The study was designed in line with the participatory risk analysis framework (Fig. 1 ), underpinned by principles of qualitative ‘action research’ methodology (sometimes also referred as participatory action research) 48 . Although action research is primarily characterized by its iterative cycles of planning–action–reflection, it is also known as a problem-solving exercise 23 . Action research, according to ref. 23 , can be performed in many ways, but building participatory relationships between researcher and participants to critically investigate a problem is an integral element of action research 49 . Additionally, ref. 48 underscores that the value of action research is as much in developing actions as in developing understanding of practices through collaborative learning. This influenced the design of our framework, which is grounded on the participatory understanding of farmers practices and collaboratively building new knowledge on the use of multi-decadal climate projections.

Guided by this participatory risk analysis framework, we employed a qualitative, semi-structured interviewing model to engage with participants and discuss their on-farm risks across two timescales (short term and long term), collectively discuss the projections of MyCV and identify future climate risks, assess their impacts and develop measures to manage those impacts. This approach allowed us to follow an iterative structure as well as engage flexibly and deeply with participants with open-ended questions 50 . The iterative approach was applied to discuss short- and long-term risks and build collective knowledge, but the implementation of the identified risk management activities was not pursued and reflected on due to the nature of the study. We, however, argue that an approach underpinned by action research in which farmers are involved in iterative planning–action–reflection cycles can be valuable in building capacity 51 to identify future risks on the basis of multi-decadal climate projections as well as appropriate risk management strategies. Further, we purposefully applied a qualitative approach because we were interested in exploring participants’ perspectives, interpretations and nuances in the identification, assessment and management of future climate risks.

For participant recruitment, we employed three strategies. First, we sought assistance of an external agency, working in the outreach and extension of agricultural research in Australia. Participants were predominantly recruited via this approach. Second, we used existing professional contacts of the study team to identify potential participants, who were then invited to partake in interviews via email and telephone. Third, a snowball sampling method was used, in which interviewed participants identified other potential participants and made a connection with the study team. The invitation to participate in the study was accompanied by a brief project information sheet, outlining conditions of participation and privacy. We used a ‘saturation’ method 52 to determine the number of interviewees. We reached saturation after 24 interviews, meaning no new information was perceived to have emerged. State of residence, climatic zones, commodities and business type were considered for participant selection (see Supplementary Table 3 for participant characteristics). The number of participants was not intended to be representative of all Australian farmers. Engaging with a small number of participants is common in qualitative research in which the objective is not to generalize but to generate new insights 53 .

Data collection was performed via online interviews. A set of semi-structured questions were developed and pre-tested before use (a copy questionnaire is available in Supplementary Note 7 ). On average, interviews lasted an hour. With verbal consent from participants, all interviews were audio-recorded and professionally transcribed.

All transcripts were cleaned, verified and de-identified before uploading them to R software 54 for data analysis. We performed thematic analysis using the RQDA package 55 , in which references made by participants against risk identification, risk assessment and risk management were separately assigned to codes 56 . All transcripts were read and re-read to form a general understanding of the key responses in relation to the study objectives. Similar meaning codes were then grouped together to generate themes within the three components of the framework. Although some argue that coding transcripts for data analysis by a single researcher is sufficient for qualitative research 57 , we invited two additional researchers to review and comment on all the codes and themes. This helped to identify and resolve discrepancies 58 and resulted in recoding of the transcripts and redefining the themes. Codes used to visualize the results are publicly available on CSIRO’s Data Access Portal 59 .

Transcripts were coded and recorded five times to generate the final themes for reporting. In the first attempt, 33 subthemes were generated against the five themes of risk identification (short term, pre-MyCV and post-MyCV), risk assessment and risk management. Several subthemes were merged, and new subthemes were created after they were reviewed by two additional researchers. On the fifth attempt, subthemes were reduced to 18, which the researchers agreed and presented in this manuscript. The involvement of multiple researchers and comparing notes were useful to harmonize the coding process and added rigour to the data analysis as justifications for decisions about code allocations were made more transparent and consistent 60 . For visualization of the results, we documented how many times each theme has been discussed by participants in the interviews. As this study is exploratory in nature, we did not highlight the prominence of themes, based on their frequency of occurrence, in the results. The R packages used for visualizations are provided in Supplementary Note 8 .

Limitations

Our study demonstrated that participants were able to identify future risks on the basis of MyCV. While we cannot conclusively single out the impact of the MyCV interface, we are confident that the process of discussing risks from MyCV data played an important role in the apparent change in risk perceptions.

Although all of the participants identified risk management decisions, this research was not able to return to assess whether these were in fact implemented. Further work is planned to continue this approach and to return to follow up with outcomes. We suggest that others could utilize a similar risk analysis framing to engage with farmers to identify risk management plans and assess outcomes. Dissemination of these findings could demonstrate examples of climate adaptation, of which empirical examples, learnings and lessons for scaling out are still much needed 3 , 5 . Additionally, while our qualitative research suggests that the use of multi-decadal projections may be consistent across businesses, climatic zones and commodities, further research is warranted to statistically validate these findings.

Ethical statement

Ethics clearance was obtained from CSIRO’s Human Research Ethics Committee (ethics application ID: 001/21).

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.

Data availability

The interview data are confidential and not publicly available because they contain personal information of participants. Data to reproduce the visualizations are publicly available on CSIRO’s Data Access Portal ( https://doi.org/10.25919/a178-fp44 ).

Code availability

No computer-assisted algorithms were used in data analysis to generate codes and themes. Codes used to visualize the results are publicly available on CSIRO’s Data Access Portal ( https://doi.org/10.25919/a178-fp44 ).

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Future Drought Fund, administered by the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF). We thank the CSA programme team for their support in conducting this study and give particular thanks to all of the farmers who were interviewed. We are also thankful to S. Clary from FarmLink Research for helping us recruit interview participants.

Open access funding provided by CSIRO Library Services.

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Contributions

Y.M., A.F., S.F. and E.J. designed the study. Y.M. and S.S. conducted the interviews. Y.M. performed the data analysis, and S.S. and A.F. reviewed the codes. Y.M. wrote the first draft. S.S., A.F., S.F., E.J., R.D. and C.T. contributed to writing, reviewing and editing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yuwan Malakar .

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Malakar, Y., Snow, S., Fleming, A. et al. Multi-decadal climate services help farmers assess and manage future risks. Nat. Clim. Chang. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02021-2

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U.S. drought-monitoring system outpaced by climate changes

Study finds more frequent droughts challenge accuracy of classifications tied to aid.

In the nearly 25 years since the U.S. Drought Monitor was created, its weekly maps of drought conditions nationwide -- which help direct emergency federal aid -- have captured the steady march toward the drier, hotter reality of climate change, according to a new Dartmouth-based study.

But the Drought Monitor itself has not adapted to that reality, the researchers report in the journal AGU Advances . Areas of the country are spending more and more time in severe drought conditions the Drought Monitor still considers to be rare occurrences, raising questions about whether and how federal monitoring should account for long-term climate trends.

The consequences could be that swaths of the country -- particularly in the West -- may not receive aid in keeping with the enhanced risk of drought, despite baking in extreme heat for months. The challenge for federal authorities, the researchers report, is making sure the Drought Monitor remains effective as periodic emergencies become persistent new realities.

"The system we use for emergency response to drought conditions is being co-opted by a changing climate," said senior author Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth associate professor of geography and director of the Climate Modeling and Impacts Group. He directed the study in his role as co-lead of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Drought Task Force and a NOAA grant supported the research.

"Is it the case that a drought considered 'exceptional' today is more severe hydrologically than an 'exceptional' drought in 2000 when the Drought Monitor was created? We think that it is, but that wouldn't be captured by the tool itself," Mankin said. "What has historically been classified as a severe drought will likely be considered less severe in the future as drought conditions worsen due to human-driven climate change."

The Drought Monitor is produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and NOAA.

Each week, experts compile analyses to determine the severity of drought experienced at national, state, and regional levels based on precipitation, soil conditions, reservoir levels, temperature, and agricultural losses, as well as reports and advocacy from local politicians and stakeholders. The Drought Monitor then publishes a map with severity denoted by color, from white indicating no drought to maroon signifying extreme conditions.

Policymakers use the Drought Monitor to inform disaster response, enact water restrictions, and offset economic losses for agriculture and municipalities. Government agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management use it to guide policy action, such as restricting outdoor activities, banning outdoor fires, and ordering evacuations ahead of wildfires.

Drought conditions are classified into six categories based on the frequency they're estimated to occur. They start with "normal or wet conditions" followed by five stages ranging from D0 ("abnormally dry") to D4 ("exceptional drought"). The chances of an area experiencing the least severe D0 conditions are roughly 30%. But the likelihood of severe D4 conditions befalling a region is believed to be 2% or less.

"While these percentile thresholds are static, the climate is not," said Zhiying Li, the paper's first author and an assistant professor at Indiana University who began the study as a postdoctoral research fellow at Dartmouth. "The ongoing aridification and worsening droughts in certain regions may change what was once perceived as an anomaly, making it less of an emergency anymore."

The researchers examined real changes from 2000 through 2022 in six climate and hydrological variables that inform the Drought Monitor. They found that "exceptional" D4 droughts have been alarmingly commonplace.

Regions such as the Southwest, the southern Plains, and the Deep South experienced extreme droughts much more frequently than the Drought Monitor guidelines suggest they should. Parts of California were under severe drought conditions for 18% of the 23 years studied -- about 4 years in total -- or nine times more often than the Drought Monitor estimates.

The result is that sections of the country have been colored maroon for weeks or months on end, Mankin said. "What value to decision-making is a map that is red everywhere all of the time?" he asked.

"Essentially, the amount of time places spend in drought is exceeding federal guidelines that determine how severe a drought is," Mankin said. "The management system itself needs to adapt or it risks obsolescence."

The study is intended to illustrate the deviations between the Drought Monitor and climate change, Li said. Reconciling the two will require collaboration between the climate experts who inform the Drought Monitor and the policymakers who rely on it.

"Our interest in reviewing the Drought Monitor classifications stemmed from a recognition of the increasing importance of having reliable drought monitoring and assessment," Li said. "It is imperative to question whether and how our country's drought assessment and monitoring tools are reflecting the changing climate."

• Drought Research
• Severe Weather
• Environmental Policy
• Environmental Awareness
• Resource Shortage
• Ocean Policy
• Environmental Policies
• World Development
• El Niño-Southern Oscillation
• Heirloom plant
• Controlled burn
• Ecological succession
• Gross domestic product

Story Source:

Materials provided by Dartmouth College . Original written by Morgan Kelly. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Zhiying Li, Jason E. Smerdon, Richard Seager, Noel Siegert, Justin S. Mankin. Emergent Trends Complicate the Interpretation of the United States Drought Monitor (USDM) . AGU Advances , 2024; 5 (2) DOI: 10.1029/2023AV001070

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