CYRIL RAMAPHOSA|
IT IS no exaggeration to say that the world is facing a climate crisis of unprecedented proportions.
The latest report from the world’s leading climate scientists has warned that the pace of global warming is rapidly increasing, and Sub-Saharan Africa has been experiencing temperature increases well above the global average.
Climate change presents serious health, environmental and economic risks for our country. These risks will have increasingly damaging effects on human health, water availability, food production, infrastructure and migration.
Many South Africans are already feeling the effects of climate change through drought and flooding, which have an effect on their livelihoods. Several communities in the Mpumalanga, for example, are affected by high levels of pollution, which increases respiratory illness and other diseases. Those who are dependent on the ocean for a living have already seen depleted fish stocks amid changing weather patterns and changes in ocean temperature.
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