Social Analysis of the role of Environmental Citizenship in Tackling with Effects of Climate Change

Many experts believe that solutions to environmental problems depend on the behavior of citizens. In this regard, the issue of environmental citizenship has special importance, since engaging citizens in environmental problems (including hazard effects of climate change) is important. Mazandaran province is one of the important tourism and agricultural areas of Iran and in recent years its urban area's activities have been influenced by climate change. For this reason, to reduce the negative impact of climate change, increasing citizens’ commitment to the environment is necessary. The purpose in this study is the analysis of the importance of environmental citizenship and social-psychological factors related to it. The research population consisted of 320741 residents of Ghaemshahr of whom 350 individuals were select as sample by cluster sampling and survey data were collected by questioner. The questionnaire had face and content validity and Cronbach's alpha for reliability was above 60 percent. The findings showed that citizenship commitment towards environment and tackling with one of environmental crises hence climate change is moderate to high (M= 3.62). Level of citizens’ commitment toward tackling with negative and harmful consequences of climate change varies according to age and education. In other word, with an increase in age, environmental citizenship also increases but with an increase in education, commitment to environmental citizenship decreases. Citizens’ “place attachment” also was very high (4.25 of 5) and also mean of effect of local messages framework of climate change was 4.21, suggesting that the level of this factor’s effect was high. Finally, the results of regression analysis also showed that place attachment to local messages frameworks of climate change has the greatest effect on the development of environmental citizenship.