Responsibility attribution in Africa

Understanding citizens’ views on who is responsible for climate action helps clarify their expectations around climate commitments and responses. However, little is known about how responsibility is perceived across low- and middle-income countries, particularly in Africa. Without clear attribution of responsibility, growing climate vulnerability and risk cannot be effectively or equitably addressed.

Nicholas Simpson from the University of Cape Town and colleagues from South Africa, the USA and the UK analysed public opinion data from 39 African countries. They find that citizens who are aware of climate change primarily assign responsibility for addressing climate change to their own governments, followed by ordinary African citizens, and then to a mix of industry and historic emitters. But these notions of responsibility are not uniform, and variation is associated with sociodemographic factors and state capacity. Higher education levels, reduced poverty and access to new media sources are associated with increased attribution of responsibility to historical emitters. This study highlights that many Africans are willing to act on the climate crisis and expect their governments to do the same.