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The world's climate is changing and the impacts are being felt worldwide.
Record setting temperatures topping one hundred and four degrees, fueling raging fires across London. A record amount of rain fell on Manila on Saturday.
The partly submerged city of jung Jao It's subway system now an underground river. This is a fire that erupted during the morning rush hour along the busiest interstate there in.
The New York City subway system shut down overnight.
But while severe weather events in wealthier nations around the world gets the majority of headlines, there are parts of the African continent where the effects can be worse than even their neighbors without getting global attention.
Around informal settlements, there is no electricity there, sanitation, it's not that good that times leaves no water.
About ten percent of the population, which is oftentimes white, owning the range of eighty percent of the country's wealth.
On this episode of the Next Africa podcast, we'll look at the environmental inequality in South Africa and what's being done to help communities facing up to the reality of climate change. I'm Jennifer's Abasaga and this is the Next Africa podcast, bringing you one story each week from the continent, driving the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg can provide. And Tondo Taquana is a Bloomberg reporter based in Johannesburg and she's been reporting on this story
for quite some time. She's joining us now this week for the podcast and Tondo, thanks so much for being with us.
So let's just start here.
What has been the impact of climate change on South Africa?
What kind of weather events are we seeing and have been increased here over the past few years.
We've seen a lot of floods, the floods of April twenty twenty one, if I'm not mistaken, in a case at n that basically just damaged infrastructure, left a lot of people homeless. We also saw another big one in Cape Town earlier this year, same situation there.
But we're also.
Seeing very extreme heat events causing a lot of heat stress on human bodies.
So that's just some of.
The unusual way the patterns that we are seeing that are having a real impact on health, on just livability in some areas. And what we have heard also is that there's really an impact on economic activity as well. A lot of people when they suffer from these consequences of climate change, they are unable to work to their optimum levels because there's bodily stress involved. And if you
look at sexes such as the agricultural sectors. This year we did have a very hot February with high temperature records broken in some parts of the country and that was causing some damage to crops. So those are some of the economic losses that we see in Kanda.
There's been a report from the World Bank about how the heat isn't experienced equally in South Africa.
Dig into that a bit more for us if you can.
So the World Bank reports it included.
A heat mapping campaign and that saw fifty eight local community members travel different routes from where they live to different parts of the city. They it fits heat sensors onto vehicles and they'd be tracking eight temperatures along the way. And what that report has found is that in urban censers like your Johannesburg twenty, not necessarily informal settlements or townships, the temperature difference between those areas and neighboring countryside neighborhoods is.
Between three to four degrees.
Celsius, but when you come to townships, the differential is basically doubled, so they experience temperatures as high as sixty six degrees celsius. And they've also found that inside a tinshak the temperature is also eight degrees higher than in homes that are situated in wealthier neighborhoods. And in terms of how many hot nights these neighborhoods could be facing, the disparacies quite large as well. In urban centers, where you've got urban homes that are properly insulated, the building
quality is great. There are trees all around, so they bar me these like greeze constantly. Those neighborhoods would experience forty uncomfortably hot nights by twenty fifty, and in comparison, homes in poorer neighborhoods would experience as much as one hundred and twenty hot nights.
And I think we should point out the fact that homes, I mean you mentioned the ten homes. There's a lot of differences depending on what types of homes people are living with in South Africa, which is not necessarily common. In a lot of the developed world, so these extreme weather events can have an extreme impact on what is happening and how they're feeling inside the home.
Right, Yeah, definitely.
If you go into an informal settlement, you'll find that most of the homes are built out of corrugated iron sheets and these are mostly makeshift homes, so there isn't like proper engineering or proper construction that is applied. And it's one of the issues that some of the city planners were raising in terms of how to regulate indoor temperatures. Because when you decide to build a structure, you take
you're building plants through the municipality. The indoor temperature regulations are sort of built into the planning process, whereas in informal settlements, which are typically illegally set up, there isn't any sort of regulation and they are tightly packed together.
It's crowded, it's just alleyways, the streets are very narrow, and the spacing issue means that they can't actually plant a lot of tree, which is a big issue because it's very expensive sometimes to actually try and build in your own mitigation risks in your home or your neighborhood.
If you plant trees.
I mean, that's an inexpensive way of how to deal with these issues. But in informal settlements, those are poor communities that can't afford air conditioners and other cooling equipment.
And for this reporting in Tondo, you went inside a lot of these townships. I mean you went to go visit them and talk to people. What did they tell you about this? I'm sure for many of them this is just what they've always experienced. But I wonder how they've seen changes happen, how, yeah, these extreme events are affecting them on a day to day basis.
We actually visited a lady called Nolatando Geja. She lives in an informal settlement just in Twine, which is north of Johannesburg.
Her home is a two roomed wall.
Structure, but the roof is corrugated, is a corrugated iron sheets.
It's very tiny. It's very tiny.
If I had to estimate, probably like the room we were in, which is her kitchen, was probably like ten feet at most. And what she said to me was that it's just frustrating to be in such a small space. She doesn't have many options for cooling, and at night it gets exacerbated. I remember she said it actually does have an emotional toll on her. She lives with three kids in that small structure, and she was saying, I just find myself.
Screaming at these kids because it's just so hot. I'm frustrated. It's like stressing me.
And I think what also compounds this issue in those particular areas is the lack of basic services. Unsustainable electricity supply, unsustainable water supply. I mean, in situations like that, you need water to alleviate some of the stresses that come with the heat that is just engulfing you.
Basically, the problem.
Is also that there's like a rapid urbanization that's happening, so more and more people are coming into these informal settlements and they actually end up cutting them down, cutting the.
Trees down to make space for more checks.
Basically, stick with us in Tondo.
When we come back, we'll talk about what if anything, is being done to help people like know Lutando you were just describing there, So we'll be right back. Welcome back today on the podcast, we're talking about the impact of climate change on disadvantaged communities in South Africa. Our reporter in Tondo Taquanta is still with us and Tondo.
What is the South.
African government saying about this?
Do they accept there's a problem and we should caveat this by saying there's historical ties to these settlements in these townships.
Yeah, the government does recognize that this is a problem. In fact, part of the reasoning on the retional behind this study was to come up with strategies that could be given to municipalities to adopt in their own plans for how they could proof cities and townships and informal settlements.
Against the risks of climate change.
This particular study, they worked with the National Treasury, which through fiscal transfers, is helping municipalities do this. In fact, there's work that the Human Settlement's Department is doing. That's the department responsible for housing and building homes for people.
There's a specific.
Informal settlement upgrading grants that's aimed at upgrading informal settlements of South Africa so that people have housing, proper housing. So basically they take them out of these informal structures and build homes for them, and the National Treasury is actually advocating for them to think about climate risk strategies or climate resilience strategies so that they can actually apply them in building these houses. So there is work that is being done, and there are also heat action plan
and that cities are expected to adopt. In fact, one was approved in the city of Cape Town And they are doing work such as coming up with.
Alert systems for when they expect there.
To be like an extreme heat wave and basically educating dwellers of these places for how to deal with the risks of climate change. And they're also encouraging them to go on these huge planting drives so that they can increase the vegetation around them.
And when it comes to the infrastructure, do we know exactly what it is that needs to be implemented into these townships.
There are some ideas that have been thrown around. One obvious one is painting the rules of these structures with white paints so as to increase the amount of heat that can be trapped. In terms of the infrastructure, that is some of what is being suggested more ventilation as well as some of it.
And what's the likelihood that will actually see some change, Because I mean, this is a pretty large issue that needs to be handled and tackle.
It's very difficult because even if you think about like you mentioned earlier.
That this is a legacy issue.
South Africa has been trying to sort out, you know, its housing crisis for thirty years, and they have not been able to break this inequality when it comes to its special divide that sees black people basically left to the margins of the city, which is where people feel the most adverse effect of climate change. I'd be less hopeful that this can be done very quickly because of the fact that historically, even just the housing crisis has
been very difficult to sort out. But at the same time, I think one can be encouraged that they are actually thinking about how the impacts of climate change affect people, and that they are making a more concerted effort to make sure that there's budgeting for it and to make sure that municipalities following some of these strategies that they are suggesting.
And we hear from a number of climate strategists saying that of course this stream weather it's going to continue if the right mitigation measures aren't put in place. What's the outlook then for these communities, And I wonder when you speak to them, how do they feel about the issue now and maybe where it's headed towards if something's not done.
To be honest, while it is a worry, they worry it more about the lack of basic services. I feel like for them that is a far reach. The first thing that they want to see is running water in the community that I went too.
Specifically, when you.
Walk into the streets, you literally see open sewer trickling down the streets and the stench is quite strong. And what a Nolusando kept on saying, or keeps on emphasizing, was the fact that it just stinks and it's worse when it becomes hotter and hotter, and sorting that issue out first would be the price for them. So yeah, I think there's still a bit far from actually thinking
about how does weigha affect me? Infect some of them are actually oblivious to how the impetsul climate change affect them.
Yeah, they're just trying to get through the here and now before thinking about the future.
And Tondo, fantastic reporting.
Thank you so much for joining us and a really fascinating read that everybody should check out.
And Tondo thanks sure, Thank you, Jo and Tondo, thanks so much.
For joining US and for your reporting on this story, and you can read in Tondo's story on Bloomberg News. We'll put a link into our show notes some other stories we're watching in the region this week. Germany has now detected two potential cases of the Marlburg virus. The highly contagious disease mainly found in Africa, has seen in upticking cases as of recent According to the WHO, the virus has a fatality rate of as much as eighty
eight percent. And Ethiopia has asked holders of its one billion dollar bond to take an eighteen percent loss in a debt restructuring strategy.
The influential group of investors.
Including the likes of Morgan Stanley, Asset Management and New State Partners, has already rejected such an offer in advance. You can follow these stories across Bloomberg, including the Next African Newsletter. We'll also put a link to that in the show notes. This program was produced by Adrian Bradley. Don't forget to follow and review the show wherever you usually get your podcast. I'm Jennifer's Abasanja. Thanks for listening.