COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ATTITUDES TOWARD CLIMATE CHANGE POLICIES ACROSS URBAN AND RURAL POPULATIONS
Abstract
Climate change is one of the key issues in the world, and it needs large-scale participation of the population to successfully enforce mitigation and adaptation measures. However, the attitudes of the people towards climate policies are non-homogenous and often range widely in the socio-spatial setting, especially in the city and rural population. The current study will carry out the comparative study of climate policy attitudes which will include awareness, risk perception, support of the policy, and institutional trust of urban and rural residents in Pakistan. A quantitative survey design was used in collecting data where 600 respondents were used, 300 of them were urban and 300 rural. It was found that urban populations have more awareness of climatic changes, more support of regulation and renewable energy policies, and more trust in scientific institutions. Conversely the rural dwellers are more pragmatic and livelihood-oriented, and they are more supportive to policies that directly target agricultural vulnerability, water scarcity, and local adaptation requirements. Regression and mediation analyses show that the mediators of policy attitudes are education, media exposure and perceived economic impact, institutional trust is a moderator between climate awareness and policy support. The research results in a conclusion that climate communication and policy development should be specific to the context and urban and rural populations, whose socio-economic contexts are unique. These findings add to the existing body of knowledge on the topic of environmental governance and citizen opinion in developing democracies.
Keywords: Climate change, public opinion, environmental policy, urban-rural divide, policy support, Pakistan.
