Public perceptions: The role of Individuals, societies, and states in managing the environmental challenges – cross-sectional study

2.1 Study design and Settings:

This questionnaire-based cross-sectional survey was steered under the supervision of the National Defense University, Islamabad, Pakistan and the College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia during the period January 2022 to August 2022.

2.2 Study survey procedure and instrument:

In this study, a well-established, English language questionnaire was developed. The study participants were invited to join the questionnaire survey using social media platforms including WhatsApp and emails and direct invitations to the academic and research institutes. The study objectives, consent, and voluntary participation were presented at the beginning of the questionnaire. The study variables were socio-demographic characteristics, age, gender, occupation, level of education, and socioeconomic status. The survey consists of a set of questions in which the respondents were asked to state whether they agree with the statement, remain neutral or they disagree in the form of “yes, no and neutral.” The questions in this survey were distributed to the public aged more than 16 years, who are residing in different regions of Saudi Arabia, Gulf regions, and Pakistan. The survey was conducted with the focus on the young generation encompassing students of various levels, and then to have a broader outlook people from all walks of life were included. Power formula was used to calculate the sample size.

In this study, one thousand questionnaires were distributed, and the response rate was 852 (85.2 %). Among 852 participants, 488 (57.28 %) were males and 364 (42.72 %) were females. The first part of the questionnaires covered the need for individual responsibilities and the importance of personal roles regarding climate change. The second part covered the societal role in curtailing climate change. The third part covered the role of a state and what steps can be taken to help reduce climate change. Finally, the questionnaire inquired if the respondents agreed that a bottom-up approach is more effective as compared to a top-down one. All principles and their different versions were covered in the questionnaire, and some principles have statements connected to them. However, the statements were not directly connected to one particular principle, and some statement covers different principles depending on if respondents support the statement or not.

2.3 Ethical statement:

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the ethical board of the Federal Government Education Institutions, Rawalpindi, (FGEI-11/A2-X/2022).

2.4 Statistical analysis

The results were analyzed using the SPSS software, version 26.0. The demographical variables were reported using frequency and percentage. The comparisons between the variables were analyzed using independent sample t-tests, and chi-squared tests and a p-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant.

4.1 Individual role and bottom-up approach

The role of an individual is important and influences public policies. Individuals can also help in the implementation of sustainable policies. States cannot implement policies without the acceptance of their population. If individuals are aware of the sustainable policies, they can make a stark difference (Jakučionytė-Skodienė & Liobikienė, 2021). This can be done through the social media campaigns and community service work an individual does in his capacity. Individuals can also help the states in promoting environmental and economic policies. Sustainable development, which is the promotion of economic growth while conserving environmental quality for future generations, has emerged as the main idea in environmental policy (Ruggerio, 2021). Individual activities are affecting the environment because if we look through the lens of neoliberalism, individuals are more of the consumers than the citizens of the states. The activities can be the emission of chlorofluorocarbons from the household items that an individual owns, such as carbon emission from cars, not dumping the waste properly (Luo et al., 2021). Environment conservation and sustainable development economic policies were once the duty of the appointed officials but lately, policies and management of the environment are seen as a broader term that requires the communities, individuals, and corporate sector directly involved. The role of the government has changed regarding environmental policy (Thaler & Seebauer, 2019). The change recognizes the contributions of various levels of government like global, regional, and local as well as the roles of the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and civil society. These levels of governance have emerged which compliments the need for new institutions to overcome the more complex problems of society. Moral values and globalization in terms of the economy have also played a role in this transition of governance (Lau et al., 2021a). Many factors are superior to a government because of the free market’s commercial activities. These perceptions consequently stem from privatization, which has diminished the sole influence and ability of governments to directly control their economies (Sholahuddin Al-Fatih et al., 2021).

4.2 Individual level changes

Drop by drop makes a mighty ocean. The efforts of individuals can help the states reduce pollution. It is not possible without collective effort and the actions must be taken from the grassroots level. Personal actions and systemic changes must take place simultaneously (Drouet et al., 2021). This is the binary option for us to save the world. Individuals can indeed take certain actions to reduce climate change, but it is not practical to completely depend on an individual. Individual actions are important but are limited. In this battle against climate change, the powerful personal actions individuals can perform are reducing their carbon footprint and keeping a check on food miles, reducing food waste, and eating the leftovers (Jakučionytė-Skodienė & Liobikienė, 2021). An individual can plant a garden and promote local products. The culturally specific example of individual action in reducing this great global environmental issue is of using pollution-free products, but this thought is flawed. Individual actions can be used as short-term reduction strategies (Jakučionytė-Skodienė & Liobikienė, 2021). The definition of personal actions is needed to be broadened beyond what we buy or consume. Transformation of the lifecycle of an individual is required only of those who are financially and physically capable (Lau et al., 2021b).

4.3 Societal level changes

Measures such as cycling, using green energy, and waste recycling in your daily life indeed create a good difference and influence in society as well as on the mental health of an individual. Humans have a major influence in modifying and conserving the environment. The sustainability of the environment can be determined by the interaction between the environment and mankind (Ruggerio, 2021). To fulfil their daily needs, humans interact with their surroundings. If sustainable steps are not taken by individuals, states, and international communities, future generations will not be able to meet their needs. Sustainable environmental steps that must be taken depend on the stakeholders (government, local communities, civil society organizations, and the market sector are also includeed) (Ayre and Callway, 2005). Most developing countries have failed to do their role in managing natural resources because of the lack of a bottom-up approach and the monitory systems. Civil society support the government and market sectors in processes for environmental management. Civil societies perform environmental research, provide advice for sustainable strategies, and can motivate participatory management of the environment through the involvement of local communities. The financial facility can also be provided by civil society (Lau et al., 2021). They can also create awareness among local communities and influence the public to better natural resource management strategies. Their key role can be to function as watchdogs, monitor, evaluate and ensure effectiveness. Hence, civil society needs to be galvanized to enshrine environmental protection in the state constitution (Lau et al., 2021b).

4.4 Future generation

The young generation is more active and motivated in addressing climate change than the previous one. This generation has witnessed more climate issues. Also, globalization has made this world a global village, and the media and technological advancements do not keep any news hidden. There is still a need of inculcating moral values through academics so that they become able of taking action. More awareness should be given so that every individual plays his part. Awareness in rural areas is also needed to be created (Jeong et al., 2021).

4.5 State sovereignty

Environmental challenges can indeed pose a threat to a state’s sovereignty. For instance, if the community is facing issues because of climate change and those issues are not being addressed timely, it will pose a threat of conflict within the state. If the climate issues are not addressed, the population will get deprived of basic human needs, and this deprivation will lead to protracted social conflicts (Suh et al., 2021). Climate change can undermine the state’s ability to govern by increasing demands on vital resources that support national security such as water, and food (Molotoks et al., 2021). When the states fail to address their environmental issues, their other neighbouring states get affected by the same issues. This may force the neighboring states to get involved to prevent climate change in the home country, this involvement may pose security and sovereignty threats.

There is an interesting case study of countries which supports this version. Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal. Following the climate protocols of the Paris agreement, the coal era is gradually ending. Now, if coal extraction is blocked, it may result in thousands of jobs being cut among Australians (de Valck et al., 2021). Coal royalties for one state alone, Queensland, approached $4 billion in 2019. Mining policy can still decide elections in Australia and the present conservation government is determined to do the bare minimum on climate change. (Li et al., 2020).

Brazil is home to the Amazon Forest. Now Amazon forests function as the lung of the world and sink carbon dioxide (Jiang et al., 2018). However, they also provide a livelihood to the inhabitants, wherein timbering is a major source, and areas are being cultivated and brought under settlements. Now, both conflict with each other, if Brazil goes for the greater good of the world by following the climate protocols and policies, it affects its local population in an adverse manner (Fulgêncio-Lima et al., 2021). It has been noticed that there are some concerns against climate policies as these become detrimental to national interests and are considered interference in internal matters of sovereign states (Carrasco-Torrontegui1 et al., 2022). Conversely, at the international level, there is criticized a lacking action on Amazon forests (Anthony and Stephen, 2019) and converting the carbon sink to carbon sources in Amazon (Meister and Richwein, 2020). It is a universal notion though debatable that climate change, by exacerbating strains on the natural resources of countries, presents a substantial menace to state sovereignty and the peaceful world order (Mirzaei & Zibaei, 2021).

There are multiple factors which causes environmental challenges in Global South. The coal power plants, motor vehicles, unplanned industrlization are the major contributors to CO2 emissions and smog, which lead to global warming and climate change. Moreover, massive tree cutting in the Global South leads to environmental threat (Kouser, et al., 2022; Sayed et al., 2022). Environmental protection is a major factor in the battle of tackling the environmental challenges. More recently, in global south, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan took the steps of green initiatives to keep the environment green and clean, to control the environmental pollution and climate changes.