Abstract:
Climate change, characterized by long-term shifts in temperature and weather patterns, poses significant challenges for communities in vulnerable regions like Walmara District, Oromia region, Ethiopia. This study assessed the community's awareness and understanding of climate change and Sustainable development, focusing on perceived causes, sources of information, and strategies for awareness enhancement. Data were collected via a questionnaire survey from 245 randomly selected respondents, with analysis performed using SPSS version 20. The results shows that almost half of the respondents agreed that climate change is happening and most of the respondents (64.9%) said that they had heard information about climate change, while 33.4% of the respondents said that no information about climate change. In addition to this almost more than half of the respondents, 60.4% have said that they heard about sustainable development. In addition of this education, access of information, factors such as public sources, teaching the concept of climate change in the school curriculum, and Government action and sources of income has a significant effect on the level of community awareness on climate change and sustainable development, while gender, farming experiences and age found to be insignificant in determining level of community awareness on climate change and sustainable development of the Walmara district. Overall, community awareness of climate change and sustainable development is crucial for policymakers, as it reflects the public's readiness to engage with climate adaptation practices and support sustainable development strategies. For climate adaptation, well-informed communities can better prepare for and respond to climate-related challenges, such as extreme weather events, by adopting local solutions and contributing to resilience-building efforts. In turn, these actions help create a more sustainable and adaptive society, aligning with broader national and global sustainability goals. Finally, this study recommends that they should create awareness by preparing various awareness programs so that rural climate change can reduce climate change and benefit from sustainable development
