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They may live in worlds that seem quite different, but Yola Mogwana (14) or Anelisa Mugedezi (14) have much to share with Greta Thunberg (19), the Swedish climate activist.
They are anxious and frustrated, but they are determined to create a better future for their generation.These are the ties that unify young climate activists around the world.
Climate change is most damaging to children. They are more susceptible than adults to extreme weather, its health effects, and the world is becoming more dangerous.
Read more Daily Maverick: “Northern Cape drought takes its toll on young people’s mental health”
Our planet is on fire, Thunberg, then 16 years old, told world leaders at Davos in 2019. Yola and Anelisa started to find their voices in activism as they urged school strikes against climate change and raised her voice on the international stage.
Yola At the age of 11, she attended her first global climate march outside Parliament in Cape Town. She delivered a speech about climate justice to approximately 2,000 pupils.
Today, she and Anelisa regularly speak out on issues that directly affect our planet – their own neighbourhood in particular – at a tipping point in climate history.
They realize that their voices need to be heard in the face of climate inaction in many parts of society.
Both express concern about their prospects and feel betrayed by institutions, adults, and government.
“Yes, I do get angry because, like, the situations that we are facing, we shouldn’t be facing,” says Anelisa, wearing a Garfield T shirt, ripped jeans, and a new hairstyle. “We should be living our lives, yet we are fighting for climate justice. And still, the government is in denial about the issue.”
Climate inaction is causing a crisis
Science is clear: To avoid dangerous climate change thresholds, we must reduce global human-caused carbon dioxide emission by nearly half (45%).) by 2030 By 2050, it will be almost zero
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recent landmark AssessmentMany of the consequences of global warming are simply irreversible, despite our ability to adapt to climate risks. This report, which is almost 3700 pages long, supports claims of climate-related loss and damage. It is clear that the state of the planet has deteriorated beyond our expectations.
Read more Daily Maverick: “Mother of asthmatic children fights to breathe in the shadow of coal power stations”
Although the report is a stark warning about the dangers of inaction, it also highlights the possibility that cities linked to climate resilience development could be able to provide timely adaptation solutions in this rapidly evolving crisis. However, scientists warn of the growing maladaptation problem in cities and warn that some intervention interventions could backfire on communities, if not properly considered.
Experts believe there is still a small window of opportunity to create living spaces that allow people to thrive and survive. But this window is closing fast.
“We can see our world is burning,” says Anelisa. “It is shutting down because of climate change.”
Both girls They are part of a court case to stop South Africa’s government from expanding its coal fleet at MpumalangA with an additional 1,500MW power plant. Their curiosity is sparked in part by the direct links between climate change and coal-fired electricity stations. The world’s climate is changing due to human actions, primarily the burning of fossil fuels.
The #CancelCoal Case is being brought by African Climate Alliance, Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action, GroundWork. These organizations, represented by Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), argue that plans to develop new coal plants threaten the environmental rights of present and future generations, their rights to life, dignity and equality, as well as children’s best interests.
Yola She believes it is time to make a transition to renewable energy and ensure climate justice for her generation. “I would like to see a future where there are no fossil fuels and we have switched to renewable energy.”
A room without a window
Yola and Anelisa live in Site B in Khayelitsha – a part of Cape Town that postcards and glossy lifestyle magazines don’t advertise. Many children in this area are not able to access basic social and health services. This is a result of wide-reaching structural inequality. These factors, taken together, are known to increase mental health risk.
Khayelitsha is a vibrant, growing city that is also underresourced and densely populated. It faces many urban planning challenges and delivery issues, including water supply and pollution.
Low levels of adaptive ability in many local communities makes socioeconomic vulnerability very high. This is made worse by poverty, unemployment, and the legacy of apartheid era planning decisions.
This sprawling township is already experiencing climate shocks that are increasing the socioeconomic problems, including accessing safe drinking water, enough food, and shelter.
(Photo by Newton Stanford).
Khayelitsha also lacks green lungs and safe open space. In Labyrinthine alleys and streets, there are only a few patches of greenery. Many social activists and young climate activists are thriving in this space.
Anelisa lives in a two-bedroom home with her mom (37) as well as three of her cousins. It is made of corrugated iron, cardboard sheets and is located opposite a blue spaza store that sells items like maize meal pap and cigarettes.
Their front door opens onto a shared tap for 55 families and seven concrete shells that house seven public toilets. This is a bustling area, a unique community hub, as well as a direct access point for water and sanitation services in a resource constrained world.
A group of barefooted boys are playing on the pavement while sharing two orange ice lollies.
Today’s overflowing toilets have caused a steady trickle in raw sewage into a street pothole.
“In summer, we are suffocating from this air,” Anelisa says. “It is like we are breathing in sewage.”
Sometimes their house becomes almost unbearable to inhabit during heatwaves. she says. The corrugated metal roof keeps the heat in, turning their home into an oven that can broil. She said that the heat envelopes you like clingwrap. You can’t escape it.
Anelisa’s family moved from the Eastern Cape to Cape Town a few years ago in search of a better life. “After my great-granny who took care of me died, we moved to Cape Town,” she says. “It took my mom alIt took three years to find a job. It was really hard.” Lindeka is now a seasonal worker in a strawberry farm near Stellenbosch. Her salary, in addition to her three children’s social grants, is what keeps this family afloat.
The Covid-19 pandemic was particularly difficult financially. They had to drastically reduce the number and frequency of their meals. Sometimes they went to sleep hungry or only had one meal a day. Sometimes, they resorted to the spinach and cabbage when they ran out of food or had no money. Anelisa’s To fill their plates, they can plant a garden at home.
Anelisa Although she loves gardening, there is only a small amount of sandy soil that can be planted in the alley behind their house. Unfortunately, local gangsters often use this space as a hideout or escape route, trampling her seedslings. During droughts and school exams, it is difficult for her to maintain her plants. Khayelitsha’s sandy soil contains few nutrients, and she cannot always afford water for the plants amid regular water cuts.
The water’s weight
Anelisa and her family have had to rebuild their home twice to hold back the Cape’s notorious storms.
She often feels distraught when it rains, she said. “It all started the first time our house was flooded in 2017. Our house was already leaking by the time the floods struck. We had to pour buckets everywhere because the rain was pouring through our roof.
“We had to move things around all night, and I was so stressed. I was worried about my schoolbooks and personal documentaries getting waterlogged. It was so heavy that it rained.
“That year, my family had to pack up our things twice, on separate occasions. […] We needed to purchase new building material.
“It is overwhelming to a child. It was both devastating and upsetting to have to go through this twice. I often think to my self: Do we have to experience the same situation again?”
But it is not only storm spells that have caused disruptions in Anelisa’s life in recent years. She is by now also very familiar with other climate shock events, especially after an extreme drought between 2015 and 2018 risked Cape Town’s taps running dry.
Anelisa recalls: “In 2018, there was a severe drought here. We kept water in buckets and omitted washing. We were so scared that our water would run out.”
They experienced water shortages during the drought, sometimes without running water for days. “We had to walk a long way to queue for water or to buy water, which was expensive. We were limited to drinking one glass of water per day.
“After water cuts, the water becomes brown and it has to be boiled. But if you don’t have any electricity and no money to buy electricity, you drink the water.
“I think drinking this dirty tap water is what gave me cholera. Then, I had to decide between going to school or going to the clinic. We waited at the clinic for quite some time because there were so many people. Two of my cousins died.lso contracted cholera at the time.”
Fighting for water rights
Yola and her family were also affected by the drought. She lives in the same block as her aunt, grandmother, uncles, and three cousins. As a domestic worker, her grandmother supports them all financially.
Their two-room house is located between two other dwellings with less than 40cm between them. There is no shade and no shade. Scraps of old carpet are used to line these narrow alleys, an informal “pavement” that helps bind the shifting sand.
Yola She says that the drought was difficult for her. “I was only 11 years old at the time but remember it vividly.
“Many people, including us, had to compromise between buying food and buying water. We once went three days without water during the drought. We had to go to other communities until the third day, when a truck arrived with water to fill our buckets.
“One day, there were people of all ages standing in a very long queue. Two men got into a fight while we waited. They fought because one accused the other of being greedy because he was filling too many buckets.”
According to her, the brawl became violent and bloody. “It made me sad and scared to see adults fighting over water.” Yola says they tried to report the incident to the police, but nothing really came of it.
Numerous flooding incidents in the region followed the drought, which created more emotional distress.
Yola said that during storms, Yola is often awakened by the wind and rain on her corrugated roof. The roof has many holes so that the sound of rain dripping is constant. “I don’t sleep well when it rains like that.”
They The house is slowly sinking into the sand. The floor has now fallen below the level in the alley. This causes water to seep into their living area during heavy rains. Frosty water can often build up to knee-high in their homes during winter.
Yola says they no longer bother to put bricks underneath their furniture to protect it from rising water – the damage has already been done.
“Floods have also affected my school life,” Yola says. “I distinctly recall having to miss one of my mathematics exams because I was up late at night trying to help prevent flood damage instead of studying. I have tried to explain this situation to my teachers, but I don’t think they always understand.”
She is now Feels a familiar anxiety surge when storm clouds appear on horizon. “People often get excited about rain, but I get worried. So when it rains, I sit at school and wonder what my house will look like when I get home.”
Flooding Many Cape Town residents have faced difficulties in the past. Yola says: “When our home gets flooded, we cannot leave because we have nowhere else to go.
“I have asthma, which means I have a weak immune system. An asthma attack caused me to have to be taken to the hospital several times. I think it came after I caught the flu as a result of being wet and exposed to the cold weather.”
The future as it stands
While climatic challenges have always existed, the scientific consensus is that climate change is a “threat multiplier”, increasing the likelihood and severity of extreme weather events. The Western Cape’s 2015-18 drought was an example. Three times more likelyClimate change is a result of human influence.
Natural disasters occurred More frequenttly In the last 20 years This is a much higher percentage than in the 1990s. In the last several decades, the average rate of warming in the interior of southern Africa has been twice as fast.Age rate of glObal warming
Researchers foresee intensifying dry seasons and droughts in many parts of the country, including cities like Cape Town, which narrowly avoided a “Day Zero” scenario where the taps could have run dry for its urban dwellers.
The IPCC’s most recent report Report, for instance, shows that climate change added to the city’s water woes during the multiyear drought. As the planet warms, the frontal system that brings South Africa its winter rainfall seem more inclined towards the South Pole. This makes the city more susceptible to drought.
“The relevance for us is that the cold front that is so important for our winter rainfall will find it More difficult to reach the southern parts of South Africa in a warmer world,” says Francois Engelbrecht, a distinguished climatology professor at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Global Change Institute.These and other climate-related change are described in You can find more information at Report, This was submitted as part the #CancelCoal court paperwork Engelbrecht co-authored the CER.
The Multiyear droughts at riskClimate change has already caused Cape Town to increase by three times. This will continue to rise as global warming intensifies.
The Climate changesThe city is experiencing a significant decrease of mean annual rainfall and changed seasonality of rainfall.fall, an increase in mean annual temperatures and maximum temperatures, and an increase in heatwaves (32°C or hotter for three or more days in a row) and high-heat days (35°C or hotter).
Citizens are already experiencing more heat days and more intense heatwaves. Additionally, rHeatwaves can cause heatwaves to fuel shack fires. This is a serious risk in many informal settlements around Cape Town.
Climate vulnerability and multiple traumas
The pandemic and the unprecedented climate dangers that children and young people are subjected to are highlighted in research by a WHO-Unicef-Lancet commission, “A future for the world’s children?” Among other things, it measured how well children flourish today, and how countries’ grTheir future is being affected by their eenhouse gas emission.
Scientists express particular concern about the impacts of “cascading” climate-related threats on those already exposed to multiple socioeconomic stressors.
“A threat multiplier like climate change may be the final stressor that really completely destroys a person or a family, causing huge distress and change on the continuum of wellbeing,” says Professor Mark Tomlinson of the Institute for Life Course Health Research in Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.
Dr Garret Barnwell, a community psychologist and clinical psychologist, says that the same social conditions that make South Africans vulnerable to climate changes can also have negative psychological and mental health consequences. He recently published a Report by a specialiston the mental health consequences of climate change. The CER commissioned the report on behalf of the same organizations involved in #CancelCoal.
According to him, poverty, unemployment, and poor housing are the most common social determinants for mental disorders.
In this context, climate change will likely lead to more severe and complex mental health conditions as climate change stressors and traumas accumulate throughout people’s lives. “In our country, mental health issues cannot be separated from issues related to social wellbeing, given the country’s complex history and structural challenges,” Barnwell says.
“We know with climate change that it’s probably not going to be one event that young people are exposed to. Simply because of how our society is structured, people are exposed to multiple traumas.”
Barnwell says this presents particular challenges to South Africa’s health-focused adaptation response to climate change. The underfunding of mental healthcare for young people is a well-known problem. It was also highlighted during the pandemic.
He said that many young people experience a sense betrayal that contributes to secondary traumas. “It all relates to the sins of those that have the power to protect us – the sins of not taking proportional action, or delaying action. So many kids are feeling betrayed by the adult world for not taking enough action on climate change.”
It is essential that we address urban planning issues in order to reduce flooding and deal with the effects of climate-related events on our cities. Localised adaptation efforts and grassroots activists can play an important role in this. Additions Dr Debra Roberts, co-chair of the working group responsible for the IPCC’s recent report. She heads up city resilience efforts for Durban’s eThekwini Municipality.
The kids aren’t alright
Yola She says she is always worried about her future and feels anxious about the unknown. Sometimes she has “feelings of depression”, although “she is fighting it”.
“I feel that the government has stolen my future away from me because they are in denial of the climate crisis while people are suffering from the impacts of climate change.”
Anelisa adds: “The grown-ups are not listening. They are denialists about the (climate-change) issue. And as teenagers, we are speaking more about climate change because it’s affecting us. It’s affecting our rights.
“The older generation will die, and we’ll be the ones living in the broken world.”
These two teenagers can now join a global movement to help others in their dire situation.
“We have to act now,” Anelisa says. “But we also have to go to school. We are teenagers. We should be playing, going back to school, and not worrying too much about the future.
“We are children taking action, but the older generation is in denial about the issue. They want to take action when people are dying. Marginalised communities are in pain. We’re already suffering. Why don’t they act now?” DM/MC/OBP
This reporting was supported and supported by the Gender Justice Reporting initiative of the International Women’s Media Foundation.
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