BHEKISISA OP-ED | Should your party save you from floods? Some voters think so

With 4.2-billion people in 50 countries — almost half the world’s population — voting for their next governments this year, “the biggest threat to security modern humans have ever faced” should be at the top of election talks.

Yet, worldwide, climate change is getting little airtime in politicians’ campaigns. 

From reading the manifestos of the 16 largest political groups in South Africa’s May 29 elections, it’s clear their understanding of how deeply entangled the relationship is between the country’s action on climate change today and prospects for prosperity and social safety in the future is worryingly shallow, while the electorate is much more clued up. 

Last week, the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal was mopping up damage after being battered by heavy unexpected rain at the weekend — almost 50 times more in 24 hours than the usual daily average.   

Experts say changing weather patterns are likely to cause about 250,000 deaths a year from about 2030 and make infectious diseases such as  TB and HIV spread more easily, especially as extreme weather events such as heatwaves, storms, floods, droughts and wildfires are set to happen more often and become more intense. For example, though there were only slightly more such events in 2022 than the global 20-year average, almost twice as many people died from floods, extreme temperatures and droughts alone and economies lost $36bn (R695bn) more than before — close to 9% of South Africa’s GDP.

Such numbers make the low political priority given to climate change hard to fathom — not least given that if we keep on pumping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the air at the rate we’re going now we might have only six years  to have a reasonable shot at stopping the Earth’s air from becoming more than 1.5°C warmer than it was before the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century. 

This temperature rise is the limit climate experts say we can buffer before ecosystems, water and food supplies and people’s health and livelihoods become seriously threatened, which means real action is needed now.

As part of a research project called Money Talks, which polled 30,000 people from 15 countries — rich and poor — to find out what they thought about public investment in responding to climate change, we asked 2,000 South Africans of different ages, income, race and gender groups and from across the country to add their voices. 

The results surprised us. Here are the three most enlightening findings.

Climate change ranks high as an election issue

Unemployment, corruption and cost of living are the priorities for South African voters, causing most concern for between a third and about half of respondents. We were not surprised, given that close to a third of adults don’t have jobs, state capture has eroded public services and  trust in them and the prices of food, consumer goods and services such as power and healthcare have gone up in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and global conflicts. 

That climate change was one of the top 10 priorities for voters, with 11% of participants saying it’s one of their top three issues, surprised us. It outranked issues such as water and sanitation, having access to social security (for example, pension funds or government grants) and the country’s energy policy. Given that almost a third of the population rely on social grants and the dire consequences of power outages for the economy and people’s lives, we’d expected these two issues to feature higher. 

The effects of climate change hit home

The polling data showed respondents, regardless of age, education level or where they lived, were worried about climate change making life worse in future. Their biggest fears were about living in hotter conditions, food would get more expensive and water would get scarcer, including because droughts could become more likely.   

On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 meant not being stressed and 10 meant being very concerned, South Africans’ concern about the negative effects of climate change scored an average of 8.0 — almost 18% higher than the average from people in richer countries such as Italy, France and Canada. This was similar to the level of worry in other developing countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Brazil and Argentina, which research shows will be hit harder by the effects of changing weather conditions despite contributing much less to their causes than high-income countries. 

It’s worth spending money on climate change now

When we looked deeper, we found respondents thought, tough as investing in dealing with the effects of climate change might be now because of the cost of fixing more pressing problems such as load-shedding, it’s a necessary investment in the future.  

This is big, because it tells us ordinary people understand much better how climate change is linked to life becoming harder and how it will continue to threaten wellbeing in the coming years than what politicians give them credit for. 

Moreover, when voters feel the choices they’re given will lead to better environmental outcomes and an easier life, support for spending on climate action can climb by 15%. This means South African voters respond well to political messages that show them how investing in ways that deal with the causes and effects of climate change now will lead to a more stable economy and better, more reliable services — such as healthcare — today and in the future, even with increasing odds of poor health because of bad weather conditions.

What climate change means for public health

When things such as water and sewage systems, power lines and roads are damaged because of extreme weather events it’s difficult for people to stay healthy. This has practical implications for how we organise the public health system to adapt to how climate changes affect our wellbeing. 

For example, in the  floods in KwaZulu-Natal in 2022 many people lost their homes and possessions or had to move, which meant it was hard for those with chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure or HIV to get their medication. The floods also added stress and anxiety to people’s lives, which heightened the risk and occurrence of mental health illnesses. When, on top of that, an already stressed health system has to deal with, for example, many cases of diarrhoea because water sanitation systems have been destroyed, the consequences of not investing in preparing for the fallout of a changing climate snowballs.  

In regions such as the Mpumalanga highveld and the Vaal triangle, where power stations and factories rely on burning or processing fossil fuels such as coal and oil, people living close to these industries breathe in air so dirty that many develop lung diseases or heart problems and conditions  such as asthma get worse. In these places, people who are unemployed — either because of job cuts or because they’re too ill to work — depend on government hospitals and clinics. But the public health system is so stretched it’s hard to give people the right care or change to systems that will solve the underlying causes of poor health, including getting the country to switch to cleaner energy sources instead of relying on coal. 

Our study did not poll whether South Africans felt their political parties were ready to do what’s needed to help the country adapt to climate change. It showed, though, people are not only worried enough about climate change to rank it among their 10 highest voting priorities, but also they want to hear politicians taking it seriously for a better future.

This story was produced by the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. Sign up for the newsletter.