<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Climate change is an inevitable global challenge of the 21<sup>st</sup> century. For developing countries like Ethiopia, it intensifies existing challenges towards ensuring sustainable development. Adopting the protection motivation theory, this study examined factors affecting the practice of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies among farmers. The study employed a mixed research approach to assess the subjective understanding of farmers about climate change threats and identify factors determining their responses to climate change effects. Qualitative data were collected using focus group discussions and interviews. Quantitative information was gathered using semi-structured survey from 296 randomly selected farmers. Qualitative data was dominantly analyzed using content analysis, while descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to analyze quantitative data. Almost all respondents (97%) perceived that climate change was occurring and threatening their wellbeing. Dwindling precipitation, increasing temperature and occurrence of human and animal disease were perceived to represent climate change effects. From nationally initiated strategies, farmers were found to largely practice soil and water conservation, which they perceived as less costly and compatible to local knowledge. The result of binary logistic regression revealed that perceived severity of climate change, perceived susceptibility to climate change threat, perceived own ability to respond, response efficacy, and cost of practices predicted farmers’ motivation to practice climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. Thus, building a resilient system should go beyond sensitizing climate response mechanisms. Policies should focus on human capital development and economic empowerment which would enable farmers to pursue context-specific adaptation and mitigation strategies, thereby maintaining a sustainable livelihood.</p></abstract>

Climate change is an inevitable global challenge of the 21st century. For developing countries like Ethiopia, it intensifies existing challenges towards ensuring sustainable development. Adopting the protection motivation theory, this study examined factors affecting the practice of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies among farmers. The study employed a mixed research approach to assess the subjective understanding of farmers about climate change threats and identify factors determining their responses to climate change effects. Qualitative data were collected using focus group discussions and interviews. Quantitative information was gathered using semi-structured survey from 296 randomly selected farmers. Qualitative data was dominantly analyzed using content analysis, while descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to analyze quantitative data. Almost all respondents (97%) perceived that climate change was occurring and threatening their wellbeing. Dwindling precipitation, increasing temperature and occurrence of human and animal disease were perceived to represent climate change effects. From nationally initiated strategies, farmers were found to largely practice soil and water conservation, which they perceived as less costly and compatible to local knowledge. The result of binary logistic regression revealed that perceived severity of climate change, perceived susceptibility to climate change threat, perceived own ability to respond, response efficacy, and cost of practices predicted farmers’ motivation to practice climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. Thus, building a resilient system should go beyond sensitizing climate response mechanisms. Policies should focus on human capital development and economic empowerment which would enable farmers to pursue context-specific adaptation and mitigation strategies, thereby maintaining a sustainable livelihood.

Determinants of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation strategies: An Application of Protection Motivation Theory

Rural Sustainability Research

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Climate change is an inevitable global challenge of the 21st century. For developing countries like Ethiopia, it intensifies existing challenges towards...

Determinants of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation strategies: An Application of Protection Motivation Theory

Published Online: Dec 16, 2019

Page range: 9 - 25

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/plua-2019-0007

Keywords
adaptation, belief, climate change, efficacy, mitigation, severity, vulnerability

© 2019 Dereje Tesema Regasa et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Determinants of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation strategies: An Application of Protection Motivation Theory

Published Online: Dec 16, 2019

Page range: 9 - 25

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/plua-2019-0007

Keywordsadaptation, belief, climate change, efficacy, mitigation, severity, vulnerability

© 2019 Dereje Tesema Regasa et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
adaptation, belief, climate change, efficacy, mitigation, severity, vulnerability