COP27 Side Event: Adaptation and Resilience in South Africa's Just Transition

South Africa, like the rest of the African continent, has been experiencing the negative impacts of Climate Change for decades. The IPCC WG II report concludes that we are already at +1.2oC above pre-industrial levels and that every incremental increase in the global average temperatures has a negative impact across many domains. Extreme weather events have had monumental impacts worldwide in the form of high-energy destructive storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires. All of these have manifested in the Southern African region and in South Africa as a country.

South Africa has emerged from a prolonged multi-year drought (2015-2018) beginning in the summer rainfall areas of the country affecting every sector severely with a large metropole, Cape Town coming close to ‘Day Zero”. Part of the country like Nelson Mandela Bay is still experiencing drought conditions. Flood events continue with the regularity and intensity that have been predicted in the IPCC report on Adaptation and Vulnerability, with the latest being the “rain bomb” event in KwaZulu-Natal this year. These impacts have had a disproportionate impact on poor and historically disadvantaged households, underlining the importance of building higher levels of climate resilience. This event will examine the challenges of adapting to a climate that has already changed dramatically, and the plans to move toward a much higher level of resilience as part of South Africa’s Just Transition to a low-carbon economy.

Amongst others, government has adopted a National Adaptation Strategy, and the Presidential Climate Commission has developed a methodology for Climate Resilient Development Pathways which it has applied in pilot areas. The recently released World Bank Country Climate and Development Report for South Africa has provided the first quantification of the investment costs in building resilience and implementing measures to mitigate disaster risk. A cross-section of stakeholders will reflect on these plans and the extent to which they have been integrated into thinking around the Just Transition.

Facilitator: Blessing Manale

Speakers:

• Debra Roberts, Co-Chair of IPCC WGII
• Dhesigen Naidoo, PCC Head of Adaptation
• Ayat Soliman, World Bank Regional Director for Sustainable Development
• Gabriel Lekalakala, Chair of the Adaptation Network
• Celiwe Shivambu, Youth@SAIIA
• Lebogang Mulaisi, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)
• Thuli Khumalo, COO of the PCC