Fossil Free South Africa’s Clean Creatives SA programme goes to the Loeries
Clean Creatives SA, a Fossil Free SA programme inspired by and in cooperation with Clean Creatives in the US, aims to bring together leading SA media agencies, their employees, and industry clients to address the SA ad and PR industry’s work with the fossil fuels that are the principal cause of climate breakdown. On Wednesday 5 October at 6pm, we’re hosting an event linked to the annual Loeries creative festival to highlight the need for the industry to move decisively away from greenwashing. The event is at the Electric, 48 Canterbury Street, Cape Town. RSVP here: bit.ly/3fkmtZ3.
News briefs
Pakistan and Sudan: What is probably the worst climate catastrophe ever, so far, has been unfolding in Pakistan over the past two months, where absolutely unprecedented flooding has displaced over 30 million people, a refugee catastrophe of extraordinary scale:
One third of Pakistan under water
30 million people affected or displaced
Rainfall in Sindh province 471% higher than normal
Over 300,000 houses completely destroyed
Hundreds of bridges and million of cattle destroyed/killed
The disaster is a terrible injustice. In 2020, CO2 emissions per capita for Pakistan were 1.04 tons of CO2 – a very modest level of emissions indeed. The US, which as the world’s historically greatest emitter of carbon dioxide, is arguably more responsible than any other country for the nightmare that has befallen Pakistan, has however received more attention for its own Hurricane Ian, and has sent Pakistan a risible $50 million in aid to address a crisis that will cost Pakistan $30 billion.
The Pakistan disasters have been under-reported, but even more under-reported have been recently terrible floods in Sudan that have destroyed 47,000 homes, ruined livelihoods, and interrupted the schooling of millions of children. Such floods, once 100-year events, are hitting the already vulnerable country more and more frequently.
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Climate Reporting Guide for SA discussed on SABC News
We’re happy to say that SABC News interviewed us about the Fossil Free SA Climate Reporting Guide on Sunday 25 September on their Media & Society show, and you can watch that interview here on YouTube.
Excerpts from the Climate Reporting Guide for SA 1: Why South Africans need to know about the climate crisis
As part of building awareness of the Fossil Free SA Climate Reporting Guide, we are going to be sharing excerpts from it through this newsletter.
Given that we are a country with a host of urgent, visible and apparently intractable problems, it’s important to understand why climate issues deserve special attention:
The problems:
Climate change is already worsening all our existing problems including hunger, poverty, violence, inequality and environmental degradation..
Much of South Africa is warming at twice the global average, and is on track to warm by 5-6C in this century.
The Africa chapter of the April 2022 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report states that even under high levels of adaptation, Africa could face very high risk levels at a mean global temperature increase of 2C. At 4C, the risks for Africa’s food security are very high, with limited potential for reducing this risk through adaptation. Many climate scientists believe humanity overall will be unable to adapt to a global temperature increase of 4C.
Climate change is widely agreed to be an inevitable threat to the sustainability of our entire global civilisation, and to much other life on Earth.
Climate change is a particular threat to African countries, as we are both likely to experience more change than most inhabited regions, and are already less resilient than more developed countries.
Africa’s vulnerability to climate change is likely to accelerate migration pressure on South Africa from even more climate-vulnerable regions.
The opportunities:
The apparent intractability of the climate problem reveals many other weak spots in the way humanity has developed. Slowing climate breakdown can be a guide to solving many of our other problems.
Ending uneconomic growth: The main cause of climate change is fossil fuel use. But fossil fuels have also become extremely problematic in many other ways. Their net costs to society – in climate destabilisation, air and water pollution, corruption, warfare, economic instability, plastic pollution – now exceed their benefits.
Eliminating fossil fuels in favour of less destructively sourced energy and material inputs therefore offers the promise of greater social and economic stability and prosperity.
– Excerpted from the Fossil Free SA Climate Reporting Guide
“The fossil fuel industry is killing us.” – UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, September 2022