Climate Change Risk Perception Among University Students in Cameroon

Abstract

This manuscript assesses the climate change risk perception (CCR) of the University of Yaoundé1 (UY1)’students, via the CCRPM of van der Linden (2015) and Xie et al. (2019), as a novelty. So, 559 students have been administered a questionnaire, via a convenient sampling. The JASP Software, multiple regressions, t- test and ANOVA, procured analysed data. As findings, cognitive factors (cause and response-knowledge, mitigation response inefficacy); experiential processing (affects and personal experience); sociocultural factors (descriptive and prescriptive norms, biospheric, altruistic and egoistic values; and some demographics (age, education level, and faculty) have shown their prediction in CCRP. Eventually, the CCRM in a Cameronian context explains a total variance of 64%, approximating the 68% from its original UK’s version. Among all factors, Affects explain the highest (25.65%) and Extreme Weather Events Experience, the lowest variance (2%) in CCRP. Interestingly, this survey fills the gap of the rarity of CCRP data in Africa, Cameroon in particular and in social psychologyin general. It also opens an avenue of futuristic researches, implications and pertinents recommendations, as a si ne qua non for Cameroon to efficiently achieve its main goal, of ‘emergent country’ in 2035, all along with the UN, in its 2030 Agenda of 17 SDGs.