The destruction and loss of life after flooding in parts of KwaZulu-Natal in April shows that climate change is already affecting SA, delegates at a conference were told on Thursday.
The floods in KwaZulu-Natal proved that climate change was no longer “a slow onset event, but part of our current lived reality,” environmental affairs minister Barbara Creecy said.
Transport minister Fikile Mbalula said scientific research indicates that Southern Africa will be one the regions hit hardest by extreme weather events, including severe drought and floods.
The flooding in and around Durban “reminded us that it is the poor and those living in informal settlements who are most vulnerable,” Mbalula said adding that the country needed “stronger infrastructure and disaster risk management systems” as well as “properly planned settlements and affordable safe housing”.
The death toll from the floods has risen to over 400 and the cost of the damage caused is estimated at R17bn.
Finance minister Enoch Godogwana echoed these sentiments at a separate event for the launch of the second phase of the Southern Africa Towards Inclusive Economic Development Programme.
The floods are a reminder that policymakers must consider alternative developmental models that can adequately respond to the issues of climate change, he said.
“Durban to me was an eye opener because in 2019 we had similar floods and they’ve come back on a mighty scale ...We did a patchwork during our response [to the floods],” he told senior researchers and government officials on Thursday.
“We must not only look at climate change as an environmental issue; we must look at climate change as an alternative economic developmental [challenge] and what that means for Mpumalanga [province] where we have coal-fired power stations.”
While it was clear SA and the rest of the world would have to “drastically” reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Mbalula said developed countries that contributed to “the lion’s share of emissions should bear the responsibility to reduce emissions first”.
SA must, however, “play its part”, or face the economic risks as demand from importing countries shifts towards goods that had a low carbon footprint.
SA has committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 25% between 2025 and 2030 and to transition to net-zero emissions by 2050, but there is still no clear plan of how this will be achieved.
The country’s energy supply plan still calls for an additional 1,500MW of coal-fired power to be added to the grid this decade and its reliance on the fossil fuel could soon become a major barrier to trade with the EU, which is introducing carbon border taxes to penalise exporters from countries with high emissions.
Mbalulu said the government would make a “big” announcement “in the near future” about the installation of charging stations for electric vehicles to show that the government was not being left behind and that it was not “resisting anything”.
“We must decarbonise the [power] grid and modernise the electricity system by bringing more renewable energy online.” Renewable energy was the “cheapest option available” for SA, he said.
Still, the country must continue to phase out coal in “a manner that is carefully structured and planned”.
Mbalula called for 3,000MW to 4,000MW of renewable generation capacity to be installed every year for the next 30 years. At that pace SA would create sufficient economies of scale for local manufacturers to produce parts needed for wind and solar installations and for utility scale batteries, he said.
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