ABSTRACT
The issue of climate change requires a reconversion of disciplinary sectoral conceptions in order to better understand resilient and non-resilient factors. In this context the socio-cultural background that determines urban stakeholders’ perceptions and practices was sociologically analysed. Individual interviews were conducted with the urban population of Kara and Dapaong in northern Togo. Socioprofessional categories such as gender, age and education gave evidence that socio-cultural perceptions of climate change are a function of the stakeholders’ profession; they strongly determine their behaviour towards the environment. The cult of ancestors and the weight of the common past explain the strong and traditional dependence on firewood/charcoal and the uncontrolled management of waste. Urban populations also practice various deviances such as prostitution, homosexuality and different forms of religious practices that are interpreted as the anger of the deities which recently modify the climate with the aim to punish them. Therefore, it is revealed that each socio-professional group understands “climate change” as they conceive it in their own sectors of activities differently (e.g. depletion of rainfall for market gardeners or in the case of increased annual temperatures as a restriction for business activities). Environmental practices such as recycling of plastic bags are in line with the circular economy; they are observed in all of the screened urban societies.
