Africa-Press – Eswatini. Last week’s Alternative Viewpoint by Professor Daniel Tevera was about climate change and how it is a threat to food security. He wrote about the recent floods and their impacts on food security.
This article showed us how critical it is for us to look into the matter of climate change and how it is of utmost importance that the youth take a stand to reduce climate change, since they are the ones who will be left on earth to deal with its impacts in the near future.
With that being said, I can gladly say the youth of Eswatini are slowly but surely taking up their space in this struggle against climate change. We all know that climate change comes in many forms. One of these are what we refer to as ‘rain bombs’.
This is rain that should be spread over a period of months, falling in a few days or even a few hours. This is due to the fact that the earth’s temperature is rising and water heats up faster than land, this has caused a huge increase of precipitation and thus these rain bombs.
An example of such an event is highlighted by the climateandcapitalism.com, which states that in April 2022, Durban received 351mm of rainfall in one day, resulting in floods that killed at least 300 people.
In other parts of the world, an Island on the Pacific, called Kiribati, is one of the first countries that have needed to buy land to house climate refugees. Other sources like theconversation.com also reveal that climate change has the potential to worsen over 58 per cent of human infectious diseases.
For example, hepatitis can be spread by flooding, the life of malaria-carrying mosquitoes can be increased by rising temperatures, and the hantavirus can be brought to communities by rodents searching for food during droughts.
All of these consequences will get worse if measures are not taken to curb bad habits that started and fuel climate change, and guess what, the people that will have to deal with the consequences are the current youth.
Furthermore, research shows us that developing countries like Eswatini will be greatly affected by the impacts of climate change and will be one of the least able to adapt and cope with the expected shock climate change will have on the environment and the economy. With the economic collapse more social conflict will arise.
Thus any further delays in taking action against climate change will have negative effects not only on our physical but also our mental and financial wellbeing. The Green Round Table Recently I had attended the first ever Green Round Table that was hosted by Hlumisa, ECCO Eswatini and the European Union. The event had 40 zestful environmental and climate activists, students, teachers and practitioners of Eswatini.
The theme for this event was Exploring Creative Climate Action and Green Solutions in Eswatini and indeed we had plenty to discuss, drawing inspiration from our various experiences and backgrounds.
I personally became aware of various aspects of climate change, such as the impact climate change has on women and children, the role art plays in raising awareness and the various sustainable agricultural methods Eswatini farmers have been practising over the years and should be getting more recognition for, especially now on the route to sustainable development, that we want to take.
One of the speakers there was Khulekani Msweli who talked about how sometimes as the youth we like pointing fingers at other people to say they should help take us out of certain situations, forgetting that it is also our responsibility to stand up and fight for ourselves. The battle with climate change will greatly affects us.
He stated that our grandmothers and grandfathers will be long gone by the time we experience the severe effects of climate change. He reminded us to go back to the community level and engage with our elders because that is where the wisdom is. He highlighted that our grandparents have been known to practice sustainable agriculture long before the world declared that we should stop using fertilisers and use natural compost around our farms.
Before we go out to the world and fight the big fight, let us first ask ourselves that in our communities, what are we, as young people, doing to help make a positive change? What green footprint are we leaving in our communities to help make a difference?
Discussions on the green table further revealed that as young people, we need to participate in more educational courses, that increase climate change awareness, so we can come up with behavioral change campaigns. One way to start this is by engaging with our local universities, schools or workplaces to see if there are any policies present, that fall in line with positive environmental change.
We can simply ask the question; how many recycle bins are there on the premises, what are we doing as an institution to reduce our carbon footprint, is there encouragement from the schools to the students to participate in research of new sustainable energy sources?
Climate change education Other youths expressed that we should have more educational teaching systems about climate change that will have active learning for children. It is well known that any good or bad habit you teach a child in their development stages, is likely to stay with them for the rest of their life.
The youth should come together and draft practical ideas for sustainable development. They also highlighted that as young people, we should also hold cities, towns or companies responsible for incorporating climate change in their work. There should be youth bodies in Parliament that will look at climate change issues and the needs of the young people.
The actions of young people can also help government understand how damaging to the environment their actions can be. For example, South Africa recently made a contract to buy more coal to power electricity.
In response to this, a group of young climate activists took the government to court for this anti-sustainable development decision. Their argument is that the current government will not be alive to face the repercussions of coal burning in the future. It will be the youth that will have to face the consequences.
According to the World Health Organisation, the air pollution that is caused by burning fossil fuels like coal leads to the death of up to 3.2 million people every year. Moreover, the quality of air is also linked to our climate and ecosystems.
This is why the reduction of the burning of fossil fuels would both mitigate climate change and reduce the number of people dying from diseases cause by air pollution. This then shows that there is a lot we can do as young people to fight against climate change. We cannot just sit back and watch our planet burn.
Who knows, some of these actions may even lead to self-employment opportunities, which would reduce the high unemployment rate amongst the youth. ________ Zandisile Howe is a final year student at UNESWA
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