Joburg’s climate change effects to worsen
JOBURG - The extreme weather conditions that more frequently sweep through Johannesburg may be the most widely felt impacts of climate change.
However, city council officials warned that climate change would have a considerable effect on the quality of life in the long term.
According to MMC for Environment and Infrastructure, Matshidiso Mfikoe, Johannesburg temperatures were expected to increase by about 2.3degC in the near future (the year 2056 – 2065) and by around 4.4degC in the distant future (2081 – 2100).
Longer rainy seasons, she said, would result in increased annual rainfall, making Johannesburg more vulnerable to flash floods and landslides.
In response, the city council developed an adaptation plan, which includes improving infrastructure, an early warning system for flooding, a heat wave response plan and expanding on the five existing automatic rainfall stations.
According to MMC for Health and Social Development, Nonceba Molwele, climate would affect food security, the quality of water and food and as a result, peoples’ health.
Thirty percent of the city’s population did not have access to adequate sanitation which would lead to water contamination, resulting in the spread of diseases, Molwele said.
“Climate change, particularly, temperature and rainfall patterns, will directly impact both the price and availability of food in Johannesburg over the coming decades, particularly as water suppliers change, impacting the price and quality of food,” she added.
She explained that the majority of Johannesburg’s food was sourced from outside of the city, thus due to food being transported the price of food was impacted by floods, droughts or heat waves in major farming areas elsewhere in the country and the price of fuel.
She said while the country was currently food secure, there were significant pockets of poor South Africans who went without at least one meal between three and 10 days each month.
The poor were worst affected by soaring food costs caused by climate change and the city council resolved to enlist the poor in the climate-proofing of the city’s food supply, enabling them to use urban agriculture to lower their food costs and improving their household incomes buy selling what they did not eat.
The city council’s poverty-alleviation initiatives were based on Brazil’s practices to address poverty in its cities.
