BUILD RESILIENCE TO CHANGE

There is an urgent need for cities to prepare for natural disasters and protect the poor from their effects

THE FLOOD disaster in New York City earlier this year was a big wake-up call for the world – we are not ready for the intensity and increasing number of natural disasters that will be coming at us like a “freight train”.

“If one of the richest countries, such as America, and one of the richest cities in the world, such as New York City, isn’t ready for the flash flood that hit it… It’s clear the world has to wake up. We need to improve the resilience of our cities urgently. As it is right now, we are not ready,” says distinguished Professor Guy Midgley from the School of Climate Studies at Stellenbosch University.

New York’s mayor Bill de Blasio, when declaring a state of disaster earlier this year, described the flash floods, as “a historic weather event with record-breaking rain across the city, brutal flooding and dangerous conditions on our roads”.

Midgley, who works with ecosystems’ responses to climate change, says developing countries have long suffered from the effects of extreme weather conditions but it is a “game-changer”now that it is hitting richer countries.

From hurricanes to floods and fires, locust swarms and cyclones, in Europe, the Far East, Africa and America, no one seems immune to the effects of climate change. The recent floods in Germany also caught them off guard and flat-footed.

Even Cape Town, one of Africa’s richest cities, got through a drought and managed to avert a Day Zero by “the skin of its teeth and with some thanks to donations of water from privately owned agricultural dams”.

“Cape Town – which has one of the best developed hydrological supply systems in Africa… just scraped by… but we did learn a lot and, hopefully, this is being used to make us more resilient in future,” says Midgley.

And it is the poor who continue to feel climate change the most, says Midgley.

“People in New Orleans who stay behind in response to a hurricane, for instance, do it not because they want to but because they can’t afford to leave – they can’t afford accommodation and petrol to get out and so are forced to stay and be exposed to the elements.

“Climate change is a poverty issue... it’s about inequality and how that inequality brings about exposure to the elements. With poverty and a lack of resources to help you bounce back, natural disasters are devastating.”

So, how does South Africa – and the world – become more resilient to the inevitable natural disasters? It is certainly not all doom and gloom, says Midgley.

“What we learned through Covid from the government is that they can make resources available that support the economy and people. We will come back from Covid and, when we do, we need to ensure we do it in a way that does not increase environmental issues and that the government invests resources in preventing exposure of the poorest of the poor to disasters – think housing and infrastructure.”

We also need to build back better after disasters. “We do need to look in the areas of urban and infrastructure design, and how to use natural systems to build resilience, and when we build back after a disaster to build back better.”

Midgley believes if COP26 in Scotland is successful, and they can get most countries behind low-cost renewable energies, “we could see at first a peaking in global temperature followed by a cooling period”.

Protesters demand the end to fossil fuel use to bring down emissions.

It is necessary to find ways for the world to adapt to that time when it goes into an overshoot.

The fact that a sophisticated city like New York was unprepared for the flash floods that hit it recently is a wake-up call.