Climate change will have ‘cascading effect’ on life in SA, says UCT report

Extreme weather events linked to climate change such as prolonged heat waves and floods can also worsen existing vulnerabilities such as gender-based violence.

It is known that temperature rise, droughts and flooding, which will worsen as global temperature rises will have a direct impact on agriculture and biodiversity but a new paper by researchers from UCT also shines a light on the social ills that can be worsened by climate change related economic stress.

The climate change impact synthesis report called “Climate change impacts in SA: what climate change means for a country and its people”, highlights the impacts of climate change on SA and the “cascading effect” these changes may have on people’s lives. 

“SA is a well-resourced country, with a strong agricultural and biodiversity heritage. Climate change and socioeconomic risks threaten to bring about a huge change to this status. How SA copes with these changes will depend on the response of all its people, but especially policymakers and planners,” said Dr Peter Johnston of the UCT Climate System Analysis Group and one of the authors of the report.

Climate impacts, said the report, are already clear in SA, and will worsen as the global temperature rises.

Even in low-emission, optimistic scenarios where global warming is limited to 2°C, heat waves are projected to become hotter and more frequent, raising the risk of deadly heat stress. Similarly, severe droughts will happen more frequently.

In SA this will manifest as warmer drier conditions across the country. At the same time, in eastern SA, including parts of KwaZulu-Natal, heavy rainfall is projected to increase, making the region more prone to flooding.

These extreme weather events are likely to damage crops and infrastructure and threaten plants and animals that attract tourism. The impacts of climate change are likely to affect livelihoods, food and water security and ultimately increase the cost of living.

How this will affect people will depend on their ability to afford adaptation. Still, the threat of reduced income, food and water insecurity and rising cost of living will be worse for those who are already vulnerable, widening existing inequalities.

About 20% of the population already suffers from food insecurity and about a third of the working-age population is unemployed.

“During the Cape Town drought in 2015 to 2017, for example, informal settlements were hit harder, with fewer adaptation initiatives (such as water tanks and groundwater extraction) in these areas than in formal suburbs,” the report said.

Other existing inequalities that can be worsened due to the indirect impacts of climate change include gender inequalities which give rise to a higher incidence of gender-based violence, a higher likelihood of poverty among women, who are more likely to hold low-skilled and low-pay jobs and experience gender-based occupational exclusion, and a greater burden of unpaid care work among women, who are often the ones who look after children, older adults and those who are ill in households and communities.

This, said the report, was especially true for women-headed households in agricultural districts.

The report referred to a study by researchers at the University of Mississippi Medical Centre in the US after Hurricane Katrina, which caused about 1,800 deaths.

It found that, for women living in some of the worst affected areas, intimate partner violence rose 4%-8% in the six months after Hurricane Katrina. The paper suggested that intimate partner violence may be an often overlooked health concern after big natural disasters.

For workers working outdoors, such as farm labourers, frequent, intense heatwaves will make their jobs difficult and dangerous.

According to the report, as well as adding to the existing pressures on public services and infrastructure, climate change threatens livelihoods through its effect on agriculture, nature and nature tourism.

“Extreme weather threatens the plants and animals that attract tourism as well and directly damages infrastructure at nature reserves, adventure destinations and parks. Temperature rise by 2050 is projected to decrease visitors to SA’s national parks by 4%, with the Kruger National Park most affected,” the report said.

erasmusd@businesslive.co.za