Transition away from fossil fuels must put people first – Ramaphosa

The recent severe flooding that has devastated KwaZulu-Natal shows that climate change will not unfold gradually but is instead part of South Africa’s “current lived reality”, according to Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Barbara Creecy.

“The key issue that we [as the government] have understood as we’ve looked at the floods … is that climate change can no longer be conceptualised as a slow-onset event that is going to start impacting on all of us at some stage in the next decade and a half,” she said.