Climate change awareness and environmental attitudes among undergraduate students in Hargeisa, Somaliland

Climate change awareness is often assumed to translate directly into positive environmental attitudes; however, this relationship remains under-theorized in sub-Saharan African higher education contexts. This study examined climate change awareness and environmental attitudes among 178 final-year (“senior”) undergraduate students at the University of Hargeisa, Somaliland, using a stratified random sample drawn from six academic colleges. Guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior and Value-Belief-Norm theory, a structured questionnaire assessed awareness and attitudes via composite indices, analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple linear regression. Students reported moderate climate change awareness and generally positive environmental attitudes, with a statistically significant positive correlation between the two constructs ( r = .244, p = .001). Disaggregating the composite awareness index into its constituent components showed that self-rated awareness was positively associated with environmental attitudes, whereas course completion, organizational membership, information-seeking, and family discussion were not independently associated at the conventional significance level. Lack of information and limited curriculum integration were the most commonly reported barriers to climate awareness. These findings suggest that students’ perceived level of climate awareness may be more closely related to environmental attitudes than specific forms of curricular, extracurricular, or informal exposure. The results highlight the importance of strengthening climate education through appropriate pedagogical design and institutional support, while recognizing that curricular exposure alone was not independently associated with environmental attitudes.