The catastrophic floods that occurred from April 9 to 11, 2022 in eastern South Africa will also have legal repercussions. The Climate Justice Charter Movement (CJCM), a group of ten climate change organizations, is filing a lawsuit against the South African president. Cyril Ramaphosa and several of his ministers are accused of inaction in the face of the climate crisis. This behavior would have left nearly 50,000 people at the mercy of floods, the worst the country has seen in 60 years.
Toute l'actu sur la protection de l'environnement
The catastrophic floods that occurred from April 9 to 11, 2022 in eastern South Africa will also have legal repercussions. The Climate Justice Charter Movement (CJCM), a group of ten climate change organizations, is filing a lawsuit against the South African president. Cyril Ramaphosa and several of his ministers are accused of inaction in the face of the climate crisis. This behavior would have left nearly 50,000 people at the mercy of floods, the worst the country has seen in 60 years.
The South African president is accused of inaction in the face of the climate emergency. This is the subject of a complaint filed on 14 April 2022 by the Climate Justice Charter Movement (CJCM). This collective of organizations fighting against climate change wants Cyril Ramaphosa and several of his ministers to be found guilty of homicide, following the floods that occurred from 9 to 11 April 2022 in the province of Kwazulu-Natal in the east of South Africa, whose provisional death toll amounts to 443 and 4,000 houses destroyed.
Members of the conservation group believe that if the South African government had taken the necessary protective measures, the consequences of the torrential rains would not have been so severe, even though they are the worst rainfall South Africa has seen in 60 years. « In accusing the government of homicide, we believe that the severity of this disaster is mostly due to poor governance and criminal negligence, » says Anet Solomon, an Oceans Not Oil activist and member of the CJCM collective. It is indeed since 2018 that the CJCM collective has been drawing the attention of the South African government to the urgency of protecting estuary cities from the effects of climate change.
Ramaphosa recognizes the urgency to act
According to official figures, these floods have affected nearly 50,000 people, particularly in the city of Durban. During his reassurance visit on April 13, 2022, the South African president blamed the disaster on the climate crisis. « We can no longer postpone what we need to do and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change, » said Cyril Ramaphosa.
For now, the only response to the laxity that the CJCM collective is denouncing is that of the Kwazulu-Natal premier, who is one of the co-accused. « The government was working hard to significantly reduce South Africa’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change. The timing and severity of the disaster clearly demonstrates that we are living in a time of ecological imbalance related to climate change and environmental degradation, » says Sihle Zikalala.
Deadly weather disasters are rife on South Africa’s east coast. In 2019, the Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal provinces experienced severe droughts that destroyed farms. In the same year, floods killed more than 80 people in both regions. And last January, a devastating storm hit Kwazulu-Natal, killing 25 people.
Fanta Mabo
25zero is a project that involves mountaineering, monitoring equatorial glacial melt and raising awareness of the impacts of climate change. In the run-up to the 27th UN climate conference in November 2022 in Egypt, the green mountaineering project will launch an expedition in June 2022 to Mount Kilimanjaro. Africa’s highest peak is known for its summit ice cap, which has been shrinking rapidly since the beginning of the 20th century and is expected to disappear completely by 2040.
A Project 25zero expedition is planned for June 2022 on Mount Kilimanjaro in north-eastern Tanzania. The team led by British-Australian explorer Tim Jarvis is made up of his climbing partner Barry Gray, a film crew and a range of influencers and social media adventurers. They will climb the 5,895-metre summit of Africa’s highest peak to document the disappearance of its ice cap.
This is no ordinary mountaineering exercise, but rather a monitoring operation of Mount Kilimanjaro’s ice cap. 25zero is a project that documents and raises awareness about climate change through the melting of the world’s equatorial glaciers. It tells the important stories of the loss of the glaciers that are the source of life for local people, » explains Tim Jarvis.
Kilimanjaro’s ice cap shrank by 85% between 1912 and 2007
A report on the state of Africa’s climate published in October 2021 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reveals that the only three glaciers in Africa will have completely melted by 2040. These are Mount Kenya, Mount Rwenzori in Uganda and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. According to the study, Mount Kilimanjaro’s ice cover has decreased by 85% between 1912 and 2007. « This is a potential disaster for local farmers who depend on seasonal meltwater from this glacier to support their crops and livestock. This will have a major impact on the local economy and the local population, » says Tim Jarvis.
While much of the world’s public interest is focused on the melting ice at the Earth’s poles, relatively little attention is paid to glaciers in more unexpected places, such as the high altitude tropics.
For this reason, the 25zero project aims to climb the 25 equatorial mountains that had a glacier at the time of the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. The aim is to raise awareness of climate change on a global scale. And the Mount Kilimanjaro expedition comes about four months before the 27th UN Climate Change Conference in November 2022 in Egypt.
Fanta Mabo
TANZANIA: 25zero climbs Kilimanjaro to raise awareness of climate change
25zero is a project that involves mountaineering, monitoring equatorial glacial melt and raising awareness of the impacts of climate change. In the run-up to the 27th UN climate conference in November 2022 in Egypt, the green mountaineering project will launch an expedition in June 2022 to Mount Kilimanjaro. Africa’s highest peak is known for its summit ice cap, which has been shrinking rapidly since the beginning of the 20th century and is expected to disappear completely by 2040.