KATOWICE - South Africa needs more aggressive awareness campaigns at a local level about the impact of climate change.
That’s according to the Department of Environmental Affairs' Chief Director of International Climate Change, Maesela Kekana.
Kekana - the country’s chief negotiator on climate change – is leading the South African delegation at the United Nations climate change conference, Cop24 in Katowice, Poland.
He says more is needed to spread the word – about one of the urgent threats facing humankind.
“As much as our people can feel the impact of climate change, they are probably not aware of climate change itself. So, we believe particularly as the Department that we need to do more on awareness at a local level. However, climate change is a reality and it’s here and it’s affecting us in the country. We’ve seen frequent droughts. We know droughts are a natural phenomenon but the frequency and the intensity of that has changed and that is where climate change comes in,” said Kekana.
With the impact of climate change already severe and visible in South Africa, Kekana says the country hasn’t seen anything yet.
“This is just the beginning; it’s going to be tougher going forward. It’s going to be much more severe than what we thought it would be. And this has several implications whether be on livestock farming, whether be on crop farming or even what we are producing in Cape Town in terms of wines and all those things. If the global community doesn’t raise the level of ambition and limit the temperature increases to 1.5 degrees, we are going to have major major impacts,” he said.