Do Teenagers Believe in Anthropogenic Climate Change and Take Action to Tackle It?

Abstract

Regardless of their nationality, all children are unfortunately at risk since nations across the world are not doing enough to reduce the impacts of climate change. However, teenagers in developing countries face more severe challenges as a consequence of climate change. This research portrays teenagers living in a rural area in terms of their awareness, beliefs, attitudes, and actions relevant to climate change. Beliefs regarding climate change are reflected in the context of skepticism about the existence, causes, and impacts of climate change as well as belief in climate change mitigation. We also magnify ecocentrism and anthropocentrism, as a socio-psychological factor, and gender, a demographic variable, when exploring their power as the antecedents of climate change-related actions. The data were gathered from 650 students attending a middle school selected from a rural area located in the inner west region of Türkiye. The results indicated that less than half of the teenagers believed in the notion that something could be done to tackle climate change. According to discriminant analysis, female teenagers tend to believe in climate change more and have stronger ecocentric attitudes compared to males. Furthermore, female teenagers seemed to engage in climate change-related actions more than males. This study provided further evidence on the role of beliefs and attitudes in relation to this issue. To be more specific, teenagers believing that anthropogenic factors lead to climate change and that we, as humans, should therefore do our bit to reduce climate change, also tend to take the necessary actions to combat climate change. Furthermore, these individuals, valuing the natural environment for its own sake, engage in actions for climate change mitigation. By examining the awareness, beliefs, attitudes, and actions of teenagers in rural areas towards climate change, this research underscores the critical role of the quality of formal education in equipping teenagers to effectively engage with climate change issues.