from FUTHI MBHELE in Durban
KwaZulu Natal Bureau
DURBAN, (CAJ News) – THE Climate Week could not have come at a more poignant time as South Africa and the rest of Africa are more susceptible to violent weather patterns.
This is the view of the Premier of the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province, which this past weekend experienced devastating tidal waves in the south coast, much to the destruction of infrastructure and injury to a number of people.
“The province is still reeling from the April 2022 floods and our infrastructure has not yet fully recovered, although we are making good progress,” Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube said.
Floods left more than 300 people dead in KZN province in 2022.
Premier Dube-Ncube was engaging with strategic and alliance partners at the 2023 Climate Week, underway in New York.
The Climate Week, in its 15th year now, is regarded as the largest annual climate event of its kind.
KZN is one of the five co-Chairs of the Under2Coalition, a network of states and sub-national governments.
“Our argument at this conference is that it is anomalous that the least polluters and the vulnerable, mostly found in the developing world, have been the most affected by the impacts of climate change,” Dube-Ncube said.
She advocates that governments strengthen implementation of current policies and strategies to hold corporations responsible for their contribution to the climate change impacts and to ensure their accountability.
“The corporations on the other hand must put their money where their values are. We urgently need a collective action to mitigate, while we largely adapt to the impacts of climate change.”
The conversations at the 2023 Climate Week will shape the onward conversations of COP28 scheduled to take place in November/December 2023 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Meanwhile, the Climate Week also coincided with deadly flooding in Libya, where 11 000 people died.
A team of eight rescue professionals from KZN has flown to Libya to assist.
– CAJ News