Climate activists have bounced back from their claimed exclusion from the election and are calling on the government of national unity (GNU) to sign a “climate emergency social contract (CESC)”.
Climate Justice Charter Movement (CJCM) chairs Ruth Ntlokotse and Vishwas Satgar said the contract was urgently needed to “confront the worsening climate crisis and create a just and liveable SA”.
Their statement comes when SA is been lashed by extreme weather — the country will experience a series of four cold fronts this week
Last month, a cut off low (COL) system unleashed a typical summer-belt row of storms and tornadoes down the northeastern coastline — known as the “leading edge” of the COL.
The cell swung around near the Cape and returned as snow, gales and rain, known as the “sting of the scorpion’s tail”.
In June, the country, especially in the south, was hammered by multiple cold fronts causing flooding and gale damage to homes.
On Sunday, the Western Cape was declared a disaster area with 100,000 Capetonians severely affected by harsh weather.
At 8.30am on Sunday, satellite images showed a cold front, named “L1” by forecasters, moving through KwaZulu-Natal, and the next front, L2, a more serious system, about to make landfall in Cape Town.
According to the SA Weather Service on Sunday, heavy rain, thunder, sleet, strong winds and rough seas were expected with snow possible in the western interior.
Ahead of the fronts, prefrontal winds created an extremely high fire danger.
SAWS issued an orange level 6 warning for the Western Cape mountain range areas of impending flooding of homes and roads, hail and thunderstorms and yellow level 2 warnings of snow in the Karoo highlands.
But there was more. A third front, L3, was forming up as a severe frontal depression over the South Atlantic and was 1,000km west of SA.
However, it appeared to be tracking southeast and was expected to bring light, moderate rain when it hit on early Tuesday morning.
A fourth front was expected to land on Wednesday, also bringing light rain.
The public were warned to remain vigilant by George-based meteorologist, Angelo Ricardo Hoorn, who runs the Severe Weather and Information System (SWAICSA), which collates information from private and state weather organisations and has 290,000 Facebook followers.
Hoorn urged his readers to “heed warnings and don’t forget about the vulnerable, the elderly, the sick, those living on the streets, children, pets, livestock and crops. May you have a blessed Sunday. Stay safe”.
“We will be taking active steps to build support for the social contract and an inclusive national dialogue process driven by climate-impacted communities, workers facing an unjust transition and the deeply concerned public.”
The climate movement, which bases itself on the Freedom Charter adopted by the Congress of the People in Klipltown in 1955, had months of broad discussion recently about taking part in the election system.
Vishwas said that it was decided to take part but as a movement not a party — they base themselves on people and workers and are critical of elites who exclude working class people — they found themselves unable to enter the IEC’s online portal.
He and Ntlokotse said the resulting new government’s statement of intent had “a glaring omission” — it did not mention an effort at taking on the climate crisis, nor spoke of measures to protect the “most vulnerable from climate harm”.
They said: “This is despite the fact that the document was drafted while floods had displaced 3,000 people in the Eastern Cape province and a tornado had destroyed communities in Tongaat.
“These are not natural disasters. These are climate shocks that are increasing in frequency, intensity and destructiveness due to high levels of convective available potential energy (CAPE) or storm fuel as a result of a heating planet.
They spoke of a worrying “disconnect between the reality of a worsening climate crisis and SA’s political leaders. None of the parties that contested the election had a serious appreciation of the climate crisis and its impact”.
The movement said extreme weather had extreme impact on families who have lost loved ones and had a hefty economic costs, “especially for an indebted country like SA”.
The contract they want signed should be part of an “overarching framework” and was to crafted with “civil society driven by the people and workers”.
The said an assembly of movement members had adopted a “living” document which would be given to the GNU — the document was to be “continually shaped by civil society engagements (activism)”.
They said all in SA who believed in climate and civil justice were invited to join the national dialogue with the GNU so that the document of intent did not become “an elite tick-box exercise but is all-inclusive and tackles the climate emergency”.
DispatchLIVE
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.