SONGEZO ZIBI | Climate change is killing South Africans because our politicians don’t care

By Sunday, the death toll from the heavy rain and flooding in KwaZulu-Natal stood at 443, with over 350 of these fatalities being in the eThekwini metro. More than 40,000 people have left their homes because they have either been flooded, destroyed or are at risk of flooding. About 63 are reported missing.

It is a devastating tragedy that must not happen again. Since KZN had similar flooding a few years go, this tragedy should not have happened on this scale. Neither the eThekwini metro nor the KZN government appear to have been prepared at all.

Being better prepared needs us to acknowledge the core problem, climate change and the devastation it will continue to wreak for many years to come, in KZN and elsewhere.

Generally, climate change is often spoken of only by policymakers, activists, journalists and those who can access such information from other sources. Usually, these discussions are at global conferences which, in effect, are PR opportunities for politicians and powerful businesspeople to pretend they take the problem much more seriously than they do.

Where there were plans to build water infrastructure, the costs have ballooned due to corruption and incompetence. Ordinary infrastructure is poorly maintained in many places, so the problem becomes worse than it otherwise would be.

Climate change can be defined as a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define the Earth’s local, regional and global climates. These changes have a broad range of observed effects that are synonymous with the term. Overall, average temperatures have been rising for decades, a phenomenon known as global warming.

This is leading to wild swings in weather patterns in the form of extreme droughts, heavier rains accompanied by flooding, melting glaciers and rising sea levels, among others. These weather patterns have a big impact on many aspects of life, such as losing lives, homes and livelihoods. This means it cannot continue to be regarded as a topic that is too abstract for the public to meaningfully engage with and respond to.

It remains abstract and not a key political issue for three reasons.

The first is that SA’s politicians generally don’t take climate change seriously. If their politics were about individual and community wellbeing, they would be talking about it all the time because of the devastating potential impact it has, but our politics is about gimmicks and power.

Second, they are not sufficiently invested in it to understand its local impacts. Otherwise we would be having a different conversation. That is why we sometimes hear arguments that “climate change can wait because we have to develop our economy”. This is absurd when people are dying, getting sick and losing their livelihoods.

Third, with little understanding, it follows that they don’t know what to do about climate change. We are ill-prepared as a country and poorly educated as citizens. Were we better prepared, the KZN and other governments would have initiated an intense infrastructure reorganisation programme long ago to minimise the impact of floods, which will happen repeatedly.

It is generally accepted that we have water insecurities. A few years ago, Cape Town was facing severe water shortages to the extent that hotel guests weren’t allowed to bath. The Nelson Mandela Bay metro still faces a water crisis. The country as a whole does not have enough dams, even though they were supposed to have been built a long time ago.

Where there were plans to build water infrastructure, the costs have ballooned due to corruption and incompetence. Ordinary infrastructure is poorly maintained in many places, so the problem becomes worse than it otherwise would be.

Climate change is about human survival. Let me explain why this is so in the South African context, and why it is important to place it at the centre of our politics.

First, it affects food security. Drought or flooding leads to loss of crops and farm stock, a phenomenon to which rural communities are especially vulnerable. A lost season’s harvest has devastating consequences, especially for subsistence farmers.

For instance, after the drought of 1983 and 1984, people in the former Transkei needed government assistance in the form of food parcels. Many cattle and sheep died. The worsening of the problem means both drought and flooding are more likely, more often.

This was repeated in 2015, when the country experienced another devastating drought.

Second, floods and drought cost lives, livelihoods and dignity in the most horrible way. Both will happen again. These are intolerable prospects that must not be allowed to visit any South African no matter their station in life, not if we can help it.

Third, the climate change crisis highlights our failures in governance. The matter has been the subject of discussion for decades. There is absolutely no reason why our physical infrastructure is nowhere near where it needs to be. Scientists have warned of the impact of climate change for years, but because our politicians don’t take it seriously, they have simply pretended it is not happening.

It highlights governance failure in other ways, too. Some of the flooding in urban areas is caused by poor maintenance.

For instance, in Midrand and Centurion, the two areas I frequent, there is little maintenance done on the stormwater drainage system. Grass and weeds grow between the cement segments, pushing the water onto the road and past the actual drainage point. It then dams at the bottom of a slope, while the storm water drains upslope remain relatively unused.

I know this to be true in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, too. Flooding is common because of the same problem, and rubbish that has long since accumulated on the stormwater drainage system.

Now imagine we had a government that did the basics right and consistently, took climate change seriously and made it a regular political issue because it mattered to individual and communal wellbeing and health. Imagine we all had some idea of how to fortify our homes and communities against the sort of flooding we see in KZN.

There are other impacts, too. When those lucky enough to have insurance are done with their claims, insurance premiums will go up. They always do. In fact, insurance companies are likely to change their actuarial models to accommodate such disasters in the future.

Now consider that it is not the only crisis we face, and think about why we need more serious political leaders who place national wellbeing at the centre of their politics. Consider politics that was less about posturing and more about inviting ordinary people into the process of governing, encouraging and enabling them to play a greater role in looking after their own communities and future.

Imagine budget allocations that respond directly to the most serious threats facing ordinary people, and such allocations being spent with care and integrity. But we know that in spite of the hundreds of people who have died, KZN politics will soon shift back to factional fights about corruption charges and who should or should not step aside from ANC leadership.

The people must fend for themselves.