© Centre for Promoting Ideas, USA www.ijhssnet.com 106 Assessing the Level of Climate Change Awareness among Secondary School Teachers in Calabar Municipality, Nigeria: Implication for Management Effectiveness Ekpoh, Uduak Imo,Ph.D Department of Educational Administration and Planning University of Calabar, Calabar E-mail: druduakekpoh@yahoo.com Ekpoh, Imo Jackson, Ph.D Department of Geography and Regional Planning University of Calabar, Calabar E-mail:imyjay55@yahoo.com Abstract Climate change is an area that is currently in dire need of a wide range of publicity and other measures in order to mitigate its effect on the society. This is more so in the sense that informed public will make wiser and more accurate decisions and response to climate change issues. This study examined the level of climate change awareness among secondary school teachers in Calabar Municipality. Three research hypotheses were postulated to guide the study. A self designed questionnaire titled "Climate Change Awareness Questionnaire (CCAQ)" was administered on a sample of 200 secondary school teachers. Population t-test and independent t-test were employed to analyze the data collected. Findings indicated that the level of climate change awareness was low generally among teachers and the awareness varied with sex. Also, teachers’ access to sources of information on climate change was low. Implications for management effectiveness were discussed. Key words: Climate change, awareness, information, management effectiveness. Introduction Climate change is one of the most important environmental issues facing the world today. This is evidenced by the spate of conferences, campaigns, reports and researches on climate change in the last 20 years (Agenda 21 of Rio declaration, 1992, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2001, Copenhagen, 2009) to mention a few. Presently, there is widespread consensus in the scientific community and even among politicians that climate change is happening and that the impacts are already with us. Climate change is often used to describe any kind of change in climate that may be natural or human- induced (Union of Concerned Scientist UCS, 2002). Climate change according to Ekpoh (2009) is any long-term change in the patterns of average weather of a specific region or the earth as a whole. It is an abnormal variation in the earth's climate that usually occurs over durations ranging from decades to millions of years. Evidence shows that global mean temperature increased by 0.60C during the 20th century, with the 6 hottest years occurring between 1997 and 2007 (IPCC, 2007). This warming of the world's climate has been linked to higher concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, which are dominantly of anthropogenic origin such as fossil fuel combustion, land use and deforestation. Climate change phenomenon has serious deleterious consequences for the earth in the form of significant variations in regional climates, recurrent droughts, excessive heat waves, windstorms, killer floods, and so on. There are noticeable consequences of climate change in Nigeria such as intense thunderstorms, widespread floods and incessant droughts. Odey (2009) has pointed out that climate change impacts pose great dangers with consequences such as desertification, sea level rise, flooding, water salination, among others. These impacts could manifest in food security challenges, damage to infrastructure and social dislocation. Additional impacts include threat to health as rising temperature could bring about diseases such as chronic heat rashes, Cerebra-Spinal Meningitis (CSM), stroke, malaria and other related diseases. Climate change will affect every citizen, every part of our environment and our natural resources, and thus practically every aspect of our lives, our economy, our urban and sub-urban development patterns (Ekpoh 2009). Global concern regarding the devastating impact of climate change has emphasized the need for creating awareness and building community capacity for adaptation strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change. As pointed out by Naclimuthu and Vijayakumari (1993), the need of the hour is to make people sensitive towards nature through a strong programme of climate change awareness. This is imperative in the sense that, there are some misconception and misunderstanding of climate change issues. Many researches have been conducted concerning the understanding of climate change and global environmental problems.