Public perception of climatic risks and use of legislative measures in mitigating climatic variation in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined public perception of climatic risks and the use of legislative measures to mitigate climatic variation in Rivers State. The research assessed the knowledge and perceptions of climatic risks with detailed community policy and decisions towards climate change mitigation. A total of one hundred structured questionnaires used for this study were administered to at least four respondents in each local government in the State. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results of sociodemographic characteristics showed that 50% of the respondents were male while 39% where females. In the findings, 40.1% of respondents were between 48-57 years, 27.3% were 38-47 years, 21.6% were 28-37 years old, respondents were mostly matured people in terms of age and education, 89.2% had tertiary education and 5.4% were secondary school leavers. Field observation revealed that 100% of the respondents had knowledge of climate change phenomenon and most of them (35.1%) sourced their information from television, but 94.6 % believed in the phenomenon while 5.4% do not believe. The study also shows that 94.6% agreed on global climate change risks, while only 86.5% agreed of the risks in Rivers State. The field study discovered that climate change risks manifested itself through flood, erosion, low agriculture, global warming and health related issues in the State. Observation showed that Federal government (91.9%) is responsible for taking appropriate actions to curb the drivers of the climate change than the State by imposing strict penalties on climate change defaulters. It also revealed that the ordinary citizens at Local Government level would be effective in the mitigation strategy through sensitization campaign. The study recommended government to get into grave action with defaulters of environmental laws in the State while engaging in rugged sensitization campaign to enlightened public on climatic risks.

Keywords: Climatic risk, Legislative, Federal, Government, State