South Africa is estimated to have among the highest resilience to climate change in Africa due to its relative wealth and high adaptive capacity, according to a World Bank report (2021).
According to the report, above 100 disaster events were reported, between 1900 and 1997, resulting in 2200 deaths, 21 million people were affected amounting to an estimated monetary loss of about US$4.5 billion.
Natural disasters in South Africa are mostly, droughts, floods, storms and fires.
Hazardous events are predicted to intensify globally and occur with greater frequency.
Amina Mohammed, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General says addressing the climate polycrisis is important, these are impacts of climate change combined with other risks and threats such as conflict, epidemics or inflation.
“Informal settlements often fall outside official systems and regulations. We often lack data about the threats they face. A new study found that weather stations severely underestimate the heat stress that people experience in their homes.”
End-to-end early warning is proven to save lives and reduce economic losses, and the countries that would benefit the most are those that are the least developed and most vulnerable.
A Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2023 (GAR 2023) calls for resilience to be the foundation of efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by addressing ‘resilience deficits’ across all goals, ensuring a balance between people (social resilience), planet (environmental resilience), and prosperity (economic resilience).