SHORT-PUT

1. Towards Building Public Awareness for the UNFCCC in AfricaByDamian Ihedioha, PhDProgramme Director, Nigerian Environmental Study/Action Team (NEST)dihedioha@yahoo.co.ukBeing paper presented at the African Regional workshop on the Implementation of Article 6 (Public Awareness, Education and Training) of the UNFCCC, Banjul, Gambia, 27 -31 January, 2004.

2. SHORT-PUT • “Experience has shown that public awareness initiatives have not yielded the required impacts. Awareness raising on issues that impact on humanity, MUST have a ‘human face’ in its dissemination.” – Damian Ihedioha, 2003.

3. Introduction • Climate change resulting from emissions of GHG by man is one of the biggest global environmental problems. • Its effects on agriculture, social structures, forests, the economy & the ecosystem would be far-reaching. • Herein lies the need for public awareness to serve both as education and information tool for knowledge. • Building awareness requires active collaboration with appropriate stakeholders . • Climate change campaigns should have a scientific foundation, clear platform, boundaries and objectives.

4. The Objectives include • Increased knowledge of the causes of the accelerated greenhouse effects (focusing on emissions of carbon dioxide by humanity); • Increased knowledge of what the effects of accelerated greenhouse effect can cause • Increased knowledge of and attitudinal change towards the amount of influence individual & groups can have on reducing emission; and • Information dissemination on how people adapt to these impacts.

5. Why Public Awareness on Climate Change. • All human economic, social activities, & ecological processes are dependent on climate • These changes vary along ecosystems with impacts on Agric., human health & settlements, energy, marine & fresh water ecosystems. • Greater vulnerability for developing countries. • Sectoral implications for climate change, include: • Marine Ecosystems: • Risk from sea level rise and Salt water intrusion • Invasion and destruction of mangrove ecosystems, • Human displacement & disruption of sources of livelihoods, • Prohibitive cost of protecting coastal infrastructure

6. Why Public Awareness (contd.) • Human Health and Settlement: • Possibility of emergence of new disease vectors in some areas • Increased cardio-respiratory mortality (IPCC, 1995) • Ill health from increased intensity and duration of heat waves • Disruption of human settlements by environmental refugees • Reduction in underground water levels due to more persistent drought • Reduction in size of carbon sink arising from loss of forest cover

7. Why Public Awareness (contd.) • Industry, Energy and Financial Services: • Disruption in industry productivity due to possible crises in the energy sector • Disruption in the supply of raw materials from agriculture, fisheries and forestry • Potential impact on inter-regional trade, especially countries • Disruption in rainfall patterns would affect energy supplies • Possible increases in the number and intensity of thunderstorms and lightening would disrupt public power supply • Higher risk of property insurance

8. Why Public Awareness (contd.) • Wetlands and Freshwater Ecology: • Loss of biodiversity • Pollution of freshwater resources • Disruption of fishing activities • Reduction in underground water levels • Drying up of river courses resulting from forest losses in headstream areas

9. Why Public Awareness (contd.) • Agriculture, Food security, Forestry, etc: • Harvest failures from improper adaptation strategies • Malnutrition, hunger and starvation, • Reduced biological productivity and loss of forest • Progressive loss of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) • Land degradation and loss of crop-able land • Reduction in livestock size and threat to food security and nutrition

10. Awareness & Reporting On Climate Change • Lack of awareness derive in part from the nature and manner of reportage of the issues. • Giving human face to climate change impacts otherwise looks esoteric & removed from reality. • Inaccurate & insufficient information affect understanding between human activities/ environment. • Mass education give people ethical awareness, values and attitudes; education is the foundation • Communication – when it involves message, channel, and feedback improves understanding and reduces conflicts

11. Awareness Reporting On Climate Change (contd.): Article 6 • Article 6 of Climate Convention enjoins Parties to: • Promote and facilitate awareness at various levels; • Promote implementation of public awareness programmes on climate change and its effects; • Public access to information on climate change and its effects; • Public participation in addressing climate change and its effects and developing adequate response mechanisms;

12. Awareness Reporting On Climate Change (contd.): Article 6 • Training of scientific, technical and managerial personnel; • Cooperate in and promote, at the international level, where appropriate, using existing bodies; • The development and exchange educational and public awareness materials on climate change and its effects; • Development and implementation of education and training programmes, strengthening of national institutions/exchange or secondment of personnel to train experts in these fields

13. Basic Components of Public Awareness • Information: providing sufficient evidence, database, and research finding, on health, environment and economic benefits/costs through: • Identification and evaluation of interventions • Health implication of indoor air pollution • Opportunities for CDM investments in power generation, transport and waste management,etc. • Database on energy policy, energy resources, and appropriate energy technologies • Tested interventions of empowerment of women

14. Basic Components of Public Awareness: (Contd.) • Education: • Highlighting benefits of training that helped others Encouraging all sectors of society to train people • Develop and engage extension officers to give local communities some training • Bringing indigenous people’s knowledge, experience, know-how, into public limelight • Introducing climate change/environmental education into school curriculum

15. Basic Components of Public Awareness: (Contd.) • Communication through: • Developing instruments for promoting awareness: newsletter, radio and TV programmes • Partnerships among communication practioners to promote more active participatory public debate • Developing field specific strategies for communication and fund raising • Outlining mandates, including terms of reference for NGOs, Educators, the Media • Develop work plans based on assigned responsibilities.

16. Media And Climate Change Issues • Media include all methods of awareness raising that reach large groups of people; In genera it: • Create awareness • Provide information • Educate people • Shape ideas& bring issues to the public agenda • Help people change attitude and behaviour • Assist in attitudinal and behavioural change; and, • Help people understand how to change attitude and behaviours.

17. Why Awareness At All • Public awareness facilitate the following: • Influence policy of government • Raise support for projects by raising public interest, funding, and competitive edge • Raise public profile and discussion of projects • Help in access to data and case studies for further research • Help focus thinking and sharpen research agenda • Creates enforcement presence, thus promoting compliance.

18. Public Awareness Strategy • Plan of action that anticipates barriers and resources to achieving the objectives of working with media and stakeholders to: • To effectively transfer knowledge – enhancing public understanding of the issue involved; • Communicating findings and concerns to people who can make use of them; • To change perception of people; • To reach targeted audience for research results and issue based concerns.

19. Public Awareness Strategy (Contd.) • For targeted audience, it is important to: • Identify and segment the target group for awareness in exactly the same way you would for any other project; • Use of target group helps to determine effective messages, through FGDs or message pretest; • Use words and/or images that make meaning and are familiar to the target group; • Approach and use an awareness programme e.g local languages, etc) that is most relevant to the target group • Key to any strategy is collaboration on climate campaign • More important, is integration and coordination of the messages and target groups • Present threatening pictures that depicts impacts and consequences of inaction.

20. Radio: Strength Language flexibility – available to literate and illiterate as it has no visual Relatively inexpensive, available to many people Uses batteries, no power cut problems Moveable, goes with audience Broadcast can be repeated Weakness Not useful for teaching, as it has no visual Affords no explanation, but allows people know where to get more info Some people do not have it Choosing an Awareness Medium

21. Television: Strength No formal education needed to understand what you see and hear Allow for demonstration Role models can appear on TV acting out positive behaviour Weakness May not be available everywhere Too expensive for many Producing programs may be more expensive than radio and print media No opportunity for explanation Awareness Medium (contd.)

22. Print Media: Strength Permanent record – can be read over and over again Can be passed from one person to another Tends to be more believed Serve as a reference material Weakness Only useful for those literate in the language of publication Doubt of reality if government Owned / patronized Difficult to correct mistakes Awareness Medium (contd.)

23. Awareness Medium (contd.) • Alternative Media • Drama, Songs, Comics, Music • Contests – Posters, Essay, Drawings, and paintings • Publicity – Launch events, Pamphlets, handbills, Posters, etc • Participatory approaches – FGDs, Workshops, Conferences Seminars, • Public Meetings, Going on-line, etc.

24. Public Awareness Starting Point • Based on studies, and analysis for a successful campaign: • Which organizations are involved and their motives and strength? • Perception of the media hold and deal with; • What information packaging make more meaning? • what future trends might affect the views of people? • Knowledge of organizations about climate issue; • Experiences gained previously

25. CONSTRAINTS OF PUBLIC AWARENESS • Climate change terms are quite technical • Absence or lack of indigenous knowledge systems and what works at the community level • Difficulty of couching climate change language to suit various interest groups • Difficulty of sustaining public interest and spur the community to action • Fear of the stigma of bad publicity • Difficulty of dictating the form in which people need information in a heterogeneous society • Tendency for authorities and industries, leaders of communities to conceal information.

26. CONSTRAINTS OF PUBLIC AWARENESS (contd.) • Repression of the media by legislation and various forms of censorship • Lack of proper training for specialized journalist and stakeholders • Fear of research findings being misquoted or misrepresented; • Tendency to satisfy its commercial interest at the expense of social and scientific interest; • Distortion of climate issues • Problem of editing and the urgency to meet deadlines; and • Absence of a generic language that could coalesce various languages and dialects.

27. PUBLIC AWARENESS AND GENDER ROLES • Gender refers to the socially constructed roles and responsibilities of women and which are learned, changeable and variable. • Gender analysis would provide information on: • The differential perspectives, roles, needs and interests of men and women; • Information on the relationships between and among gender, pertaining to access to, and control over resources, benefits and decision-making processes; • The potential differential impacts and vulnerabilities to gender; • Information on social and cultural constraints and opportunities; • Information on the differences between man and woman as well as the diversity of their circumstances, social relationships, and consequent status

28. Conclusion • Public Awareness is key to knowing the impacts of climate change on human. • There is every need to engage the media and other stakeholders in this regard. • The collaborative and cooperative dimensions of public awareness had been touched • My conclusion then, remains a poser, which is: how do we couch our awareness campaigns such that people would feel that this campaign concerns me? • That is, how do we give a human face to our gathering here to have value added to awareness raising.

29. Thank You for Your Attention