Understanding our world
We are hurtling faster and deeper into an ecological catastrophe that poses an existential threat to life on the planet as we know it. Even if we meet the global targets to reduce carbon emissions and global heating to below 1.5°C by 2030, it is no longer a question of when we will start to experience the impacts of human-made global heating, but for how long people and planet will experience cascading socio-ecological collapse. This is the message from a recent series of scientific reports stemming from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change[1].
For Africa and the majority world – those nations which hold the majority of the world’s population and resources, but have the least share in the distribution of its wealth and power – the stakes are all the higher. Even while South Africa hosts some of the worst greenhouse gas emitters in the world – Eskom and Sasol – we are, nevertheless, among the countries that are the least responsible for the causes of the global climate emergency. Yet, we are amongst those worst affected by its effects. More than the seemingly anecdotal “extreme weather events” we’ve experienced in recent years – from the debilitating drought that affected Cape Town and various parts of the Western and Eastern Cape in 2018 to the humanitarian catastrophe that followed in the wake of cyclone Idai in 2022 – South Africa has to plan for by far more grave and systemic climate shocks.