Fourteenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

Climate change and its impact inextricably intersects with other drivers of insecurities hence it is understood as a threat multiplier. Furthermore, globally the corollaries of climate induced changes are already posing a significant threat to the social, economic, and environmental security that demand an aggressive dislocation from treating this challenge as an ideologically peripheral interpellation especially within the South Africa context. The study made use of qualitative research design and convenience sampling procedure. Data was collected from 30 residents from Alice using semi-structured questionnaires and the validity of the collected data was confirmed through focus group discussions with 10 key informants. Thematic analysis was used to analyze collected data. Results indicated that climate change was exacerbating other drivers of insecurities like water and food insecurities as well as mental and health impacts within the community. Also the study found that lack of adequate coping mechanisms resulted in increased mental and health distress among the people in the community with depression, anxiety and stress coming out as the most impactful mental health impacts. Therefore, the study recommends that social workers play a more significant and crucial role in mitigating the mental and health impacts of climate change induced challenges and insecurities. The study further recommends that intervention strategies must be tailor made to directly deal with the challenges arising due to the corollaries of climate induced changes as threat multipliers.