Africa | Climate Change Update

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its sixth assessment report on the physical science basis of climate change on 9 August 2021. The report makes a number of profoundly important statements that will almost certainly guide the policy discussions during COP26.

As a premise, for the first time the IPCC confirmed (without any reservations) that man-made factors has warmed the atmosphere, the ocean and the land.

Second, the anthropogenic warming has caused unprecedented, widespread and significant changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere. These changes have had an adverse impact on the entire global climate system which has manifested as weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Examples of extreme weather events include heatwaves, heavy precipitation (flooding), droughts, and tropical cyclones.

Third, unless the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically reduced in the coming decades, changes in the climate system and particularly the global water systems will become more pronounced. For example, countries in the SADC region will experience increased droughts, whereas countries in the Sahel region in Africa may well experience flooding.

At this juncture, the average global temperature will continue to increase until the 2050s. As there is a direct correlation between increases in the average global temperature and extreme climatic events, it is more than likely that nations across the world will experience more intense extreme whether events more frequently.

If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise during the next four decades, global average temperatures will exceed 1.5°C and 2°C. According to the IPCC's report, this may have catastrophic consequences for most countries – especially poorer and developing nations.

If the findings provided in the report are correct, it may takes centuries to reverse some of the changes (such as the melting ice sheets and global sea level). In light of this, poorer (vulnerable) nations should urgently formulate two sets of policies: those which a geared to assist countries adapt to the country specific consequences of climate change, and those which seek to reduce the country's cumulative CO2 emissions in an attempt to reach net zero CO2 by 2050.

Governments, however, cannot go at it alone. For this approach to succeed, the public and private sectors would need to work together to formulate country specific solutions. In South Africa, our focus should be on developing policies (followed by regulatory instruments) to manage the consequences of extended periods of drought. This will allow us to prepare for what is to come. Contemporaneously, the different government departments should work with key role players in the sectors which they are responsible for to identify sensible as much as pragmatic mechanism through which greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced.

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