A recent report by the International Panel on Climate Change confirmed that extreme weather and climate shocks have arrived - increasing threefold since the 1980s. For many societies, climate risks have already contributed to collapsing food systems.
Some of the countries on this tragic list include: Zimbabwe (2015-2016 El Nińo-induced drought), Ethiopia (El Nińo-induced drought and now the Tigray region impacted by war, locusts and a prolonged drought), Puerto Rico (devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017 with 80% of its agricultural yield wiped out), southern Madagascar (in famine after several years of drought) and Honduras (a four-year drought, two hurricanes and flooding, which resulted in the collapse of its food systems).
In Mozambique at least 500,000 people had to receive emergency food aid or face starvation after cyclones in 2019. Mozambique is also facing drought in the southern part of the country.
SA's drought since 2014 was one of the worst in the history of the country. However, though agricultural sectors collapsed, the country was spared a climate famine this time - despite 14-million going to bed hungry, increased food prices and stressed subsistence production due to water problems.
The failures of the ANC state to comprehend this reality and ensure our water systems are repurposed is apparent in the local government elections, with water needs a major concern in several communities.
The failures of the ANC state to comprehend this reality and ensure our water systems are repurposed is apparent in the local government elections, with water needs a major concern in several communities
The ANC state is far from being ready to face climate-induced weather extremes. Climate policy shifts in SA are not happening as part of a national strategy to place SA on a climate emergency footing but are rather taking place due to increasing climate justice pressure from below, the imperative of meeting formal international commitments, and the increased momentum in climate geopolitics.
The recent announcement by Sasol that it will cut emissions by 30% by 2030, divest from coal and shift to gas is significant. For climate justice activists, this shift came from making public research on Sasol's carbon criminality, forming a human chain around Sasol in 2019, challenging the leadership to engage on climate science, marching on its AGM and putting stiff pressure on the inside through shareholder activism.
And Sasol's climate commitments are still not ambitious enough - or guided by a Just Transition plan that secures workers and communities.
This is the same with Eskom. Yet the government holds this up as part of its commitments to a deep Just Transition. The government's announcement of a commitment to cut carbon emissions is also a necessary shift as per commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement. It is about optics.
The assumption in all of this is that transition risks matter, not human life. SA will lose out on "green finance" and access to markets. This conservative market rationality fails to appreciate that SA has been a climate pariah. It is the largest African emitter of carbon and owes the world a climate debt. It is not a moment of securing opportunities but rather about leading by example, morally and politically.
Last month two important UN conferences provided a global platform to test commitments to the climate emergency. The UN General Assembly, building up to the COP26 summit in Glasgow, gave us a glimpse of climate geopolitics. US President Joe Biden signalled strongly that he is working on more ambitious financial contributions to the Green Climate Fund. China has signalled an end to investments in coal-fired power stations in other parts of the world. The EU and the US are working on an ambitious plan to reduce methane emissions by 2030.
However, while the US, China and Europe seem to be co-operating on climate, the overall picture is still not hopeful for Glasgow. As it stands, SA and other big emitters have not put forward ambitious enough climate pledges.
The second important UN summit was on food systems. Climate concerns were centre stage, but this conference was hijacked by corporate interests wanting to further entrench corporate fixes to the food crisis such as mono-industrial plant-based diets, nutritional fortification of food, and enhanced food aid. The summit failed to address the needs of small-scale farmers who are crucial to feeding the world.
A parallel conference on food systems for people supported by global movements affirmed the importance of feeding countries through food sovereignty, agro-ecology and small-scale farming. SA's government believes in many of the false techno-fixes of the UN Food Summit and is committed to a water-intensive and export-led industrial agriculture system, in a context in which the world is moving closer to more widespread climate famines.
By now a South African state committed to addressing the climate crisis should have adopted the Climate Justice Charter, had a new deep Just Transition national development plan in place, unpacked a new macroeconomic approach consistent with advancing a climate emergency social contract, and worked closely with the AU to secure a climate justice deal and treaty to phase out fossil fuel in the forthcoming UN climate summit.
With the current crisis of leadership, every effort will have to be made to ensure the 2024 national election is a climate justice election to secure SA's future
Most important, the ANC state should have ended the incoherence about climate policy by ensuring Gwede Mantashe and Barbara Creecy are part of the mainstreaming of a deep Just Transition agenda guiding every policy and level of government.
Instead, the minister of mineral resources & energy has outdated ideas about clean coal, Karpowerships and even nuclear power. The minister of forestry, fisheries & the environment is merely marching in lock-step with the climate needs of business and the imperative of leveraging international climate resources. She believes the Just Transition is merely about renewable energy and shallow adaptation.
SA's growing climate-aware public and the world see this incoherence and lack of ambition. With the current crisis of leadership, every effort will have to be made to ensure the 2024 national election is a climate justice election to secure SA's future.
• Dr Satgar is an associate professor of international relations at Wits University and co-founder of the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign and the Climate Justice Charter Movement. He is co-editor of Destroying Democracy - Neoliberal capitalism and the rise of authoritarian politics, Wits University Press, 2021
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