Floods have again ravaged eThekwini’s houses, roads and bridges, killing scores of people and forcing thousands of residents to take refuge and seek rescue, to evacuate into community halls or to stay home. Others remain vulnerable, without belongings and homes, in areas without community halls, roads and bridges. Torrential rains have caused extraordinary damage to water supply and electrical systems.
Could the devastating effect of this year’s rain have been expected and defences built? Although it wasThe municipality is often accused of slacking off on climate action, in spite of rhetoric to the contrary. Its Durban Climate Action Plan of 2019 lacks urgency, although it is premised on what climate change scientists have been telling us for the past decade, at least: the location of precipitation in South Africa will change, making dry areas drier and wet areas wetter.
After the Covid-19 economic lockdown, in September 2020, Ramaphosa promised to “build back better” by committing the state to hiring 800 000 new workers to assist the more than 1.4-million newly-unemployed people. But budget cuts kicked in the following month, which meant funding to repair damaged infrastructure from 2019 did not materialise, and a just transition to assist workers dislocated by climate catastrophe was purely rhetorical.
Making only tokenistic nods to the effects of climate change and not adequately taking extreme weather and temperature rise into account for future planning ; Being arrogant and distant, repeatedly attempting to displace informally-housed residents , facing serious resistance and then — without any evident change of approach — stating in its action plan that high risk informal settlements on hillsides or next to flood-prone rivers have been identified and will be relocated;