“I don’t get this climate stuff!” - Climate change knowledge, perception and concern among corporate elites in Lagos

In my last post, I featured one of three of my classmates who had won awards for best dissertation (Environment and Development) 2010-11. Read here. This post, in continuation to the last one, features Mr.Adeniyi Asiyanbi, popularly addressed by friends as Niyi. His dissertation was entitled.- '“I don’t get this climate stuff!” -Climate change knowledge, perception and concern among corporate elites in Lagos'. Niyi hails from Nigeria. Given below are his answers to my questions. They tell a story that some of us may relate to. Current students working on their dissertation might particularly find it interesting to know how a successful student chose a topic and leveraged his background to overcome challenges.

• Could you tell us a bit more about your background before you started the masters programme?

Prior to the master's programme, I did a bachelor's programme in Forest Resources Management and I worked briefly with KPMG Nigeria. My background in Forestry particularly stirred my interest in the environment. Though I had always liked natural science, I later became interested in people's relationship with resources and the environment. For instance, my bachelor's dissertation explored why furniture makers use lesser known species - essentially people's perception, justifications and judgment. While working at KPMG, I remember writing to keep colleagues abreast of deliberations and issues at the Conference of Parties at Copenhagen in 2009. And I felt good when the Lead Partner of my division responded to one of those mails, showing keen interest. 

• What made you pick this particular topic for your dissertation?

This is a little difficult for me. And the answer will also be difficult. This is because my choice of the particular dissertation topic was a culmination of many factors - some I consciously marshaled, some crept in quietly. For instance, I have always had interest in climate change but my interest in people's perception crept in. I also wanted to do a research project that I could carry out from London. Climate change is uniquely important though not necessarily the most important global issue, I wanted to verify/dispute some popular claims about climate change perception in developing countries. It is not a popular research topic in a developing country, even more unpopular among the elites in developing countries. I saw an opportunity among the corporate elites with whom I still retained strong links...

• What do you hope to achieve through it?

I already mentioned some of them in the previous question. I wanted to explore something topical and globally important. I also wanted to explore something fairly uncommon in the domain of climate change research on developing countries. And importantly, I wanted to verify/dispute some popular claims about climate change perception in developing countries. Ultimately, I hope(d) I could contribute to debates and advance fresh insights around issues of public perception of climate change, democratization of science, and climate change engagement in developing countries.

• What were your challenges while working on this dissertation?

'Climate change again?!' 'You've joined the band wagon!' Those were some of the reactions I got at first. But I realized that not everyone was going to get as keen about my research as I was. Some other challenges I had to face border around framing questions as appropriately as possible, since the research questionnaire was going to be administered via the Internet. The most critical challenge was actually getting respondents to complete the questionnaire. It didn't turn out to be as easy as I thought. It took a lot of persistent follow-up to get the questionnaire completed. Once people filled the questionnaire and data came in, it looked pretty good and I was keen to explore many ways of making sense of the data. Another challenge came up when tying up the many findings to draw conclusion. The challenges stretched me, helped me to learn and also value the assistance.

• If you had to re-do the thesis, would you do it differently? if yes, how so?

Haha, I enjoyed doing the research and the way I did it. If the conditions around work didn't change, I would pretty much do the same thing. I would only consider giving a bit more attention to particular ways that people would rather adapt to or mitigate climate change, if they would at all. I think results of this would come in handy in helping the target population take action against climate change. I also could have explored a comparative study of say one developed and one developing country. Generally, I enjoyed the freedom I had in approaching the work - just being able to apply myself, explore approaches and develop my ideas, under the treasured guidance of my supervisor of course. Main lessons for me are: work hard at whatever you choose, explore freely and value others' inputs. 

Niyi's dissertation provides answers to some interesting questions such as: Just how much do the corporate elites know about climate change? Are the corporate elites concerned at all about the climate change problem? If they are, to what extent and why? How do they think Nigeria and other places will be affected by climate change? Insights from the research challenge the common assumption that people in developing countries do not worry about climate change. It is also common to hear that developing countries would suffer the most impact from climate change. His study showed that corporate elites in Lagos think otherwise. Niyi's dissertation is not only thoroughly researched with an extensive reference list, it also makes an original contribution to the whole climate change debate and provides valuable findings that have implications for programmes and policies that seek to engage the public in addressing climate change and other environmental problems. For instance, see the table below that tells us where corporate elites get their information from. 

Source: Asiyanbi (2011)

I found that Niyi's dissertation presented several interesting data points. It was not only very strong on the analysis and how it tied in disparate data points to the big picture, but it also provided suggestions for future research. Following the study, Niyi sent out a very professional Research Brief to several people including those who had participated in the research. If you'd like a copy, please contact him on pasiyanbi[at]yahoo[dot]com. You can read his dissertation and also that of Stavrianna on the King's Website.