South Africans have been experiencing up to 10 hours of load-shedding per day, although the crisis seems helpless, the problems are fixable. Illustration: KAREN MOOLMAN
Yet climate-related disasters demonstrate that climate change is a social, business and economic threat, just as much as an environmental one. Recent droughts across Southern Africa and the KwaZulu-Natal floods in April highlight the interplay between the climate, society, business and the economy. , the provincial drought from 2015 to 2017 led to a 19% drop in export volumes and R5.9bn of losses in the agriculture sector in 2017/2018 alone. About 30,000 people lost their jobs during that time.
In its COP27 climate statement the coalition, formed under the UN Global Compact, stated: “ ... the multiple effects of climate change are disproportionately more damaging to Africa than any other part of the world. Climate action is integral to solving the continent’s most-pressing issues, and the private sector has a critical role.