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An Assessment of the Level of Awareness and Knowledge Towards the Dangers of Climate Change and Energy Transition: Northern Nigeria as a Case Study

Haruna Muhd Inuwa* and Abdullahi Usman

Access to energy remains imminent in both developed and developing countries. As it stands, each country hungrily craving for socio-economic development, in Africa or even around the world, must design its road to energytransition minding the pros and cons coupled with the previous lessons of energy transitions. In Nigeria, more than 80% living in the poorly-developed areas are energy-poor with their energy needs for heating purposes (cooking) occupying the highest share of their energy usage. The oil-producing giant of Africa is fast-becoming an epicenter of Green House Gases emissions and there will be a 16% drastic increase by 2040 if care isn’t taken. This study provides an overview of status of energy transition and climate change awareness with a focus in Northern part of Nigeria. A research questionnaire was designed to receive responses with respect to our research questions after a thorough review literature. The responses were analyzed that presented structured results. It has been identified that 51% of the people participated in this questionnaire exercise are within the age bracket of 20-30. Within, we found 52% of the people consume firewood as their source of energy. However, what is encouraging is how Gas (24%) becomes second most used source of energy though with a wide margin from firewood. Conclusively, even as the energy crisis continue to rocks in these selected states, from our findings, 51.4% of the people that responded to our questionnaire preferred to switch to electric cooker from firewood as the source of energy at home than other forms of energy, which requires huge investments especially in power infrastructure and policies. Finally, the results obtained in this study can help in addressing the gaps in awareness, frame communication and public engagement in the campaign against dangers of climate change and safest energy transition.