Factors affecting environmental workers’ knowledge and attitudes on environmental degradation and climate change in Enugu state

Abstract

This study examined the knowledge and attitudes on environmental degradation and climate change among environmental workers in Enugu State. The study used 507 randomly selected participants. Participants were selected via stratified random sampling procedure in order to make the sampling process more efficient given the layered nature of the target population. The findings show that age (r = .09, p = .01.) is associated with Environmental workers’ knowledge and attitude to environmental degradation and climate change, while educational attainment significantly predicted knowledge of environmental degradation and
climate change (β= -.20, t (505) = -4.66, p = 0.00.), However, job status was found to have no correlation with environmental workers’ attitude to environmental degradation and climate change (r = -0.06, p = .07.). Implications of the findings include that environmental degradation and climate change policy formulation would benefit from this study, in the area of environmental education for environmental workers in Enugu State and Nigeria at large. Also, following the strong opinions expressed by the key informants in the qualitative (indepth interview) part of the study, the study will be beneficial to a broad based, sustainable environmental management policy implemented at the state and national levels, which takes into cognizance several issues including comprehensive domestication of international environmental laws, incentivizing of environmentally friendly behaviours as well as massive public enlightenment on environmental degradation and climate change.