H and wellbeing crisis for young people
Oung people – especially girls and nalised communities are extremely crisis on their mental health and spects. speaks to ected by our changing climate reality
will become doctors. Prinnts to become a doctor and r children with asthma.” this year and enrolled in hool. She is small for her e workload. difficult month altogether. at Shoprite in the nearby nagement] accused me of understand my situation. this, as I was trying very hat I could afford to go to tor. My Princess … she is when they told me that my y, very bad for me. I kept ing to eat?” most palpable frustration, not a normal life. My chilmal life.” her to take action. She is aimed at halting the govanother 1,500MW power
nd climate justice organincelCoal case are the Afrikani Environmental Jusand groundWork. epresented by the Centre s (CER), argue that plans nts threaten not only the present and future genights to life, dignity and best interests of children. oking for a just transition nd want the courts to give
ase because air pollution sthma,” Mathebula says. ty area.” e recent local government ls betrayed: “I do not bedoing enough to improve ons in the area, or to deal
her faith in fellow activists or climate justice. “We are ut the need to cancel coal. n be met by available and nergy alternatives, which e proposed new coal-fired
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Africans, particularly women and children, are the primary victims of ecological degradation and air pollution caused by the country’s coal-fired power stations, she says.
It has been a long, hard battle to deal not only with the burning of coal, but also with the cumulative harms caused by the full cycle of coal, including extraction (mining), transportation and waste.
In 2019, groundWork and the Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action launched the Deadly Air case. This is a constitutional challenge, asking the court to declare that the poor ambient air quality in the Highveld Priority Area is a violation of the right to an environment not harmful to health or wellbeing. The case was heard in the Pretoria High Court in 2021. Mathebula and other climate activists now eagerly await the judgement.
Burden of climate despair
Globally, South Africa is among the 15 most significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, which cause climate change. This is because of the country’s reliance on coal for electricity generation.
Coal-fired power is also the single most significant contributor to global warming, and coal combustion accounts for at least a third of global temperature increases experienced to date.
There are many concerns about the impacts of climate change on this part of Mpumalanga. The area already has lethally high levels of air and water pollution; climate change exacerbates the health and mortality impacts of such pollution.
Rising temperatures could make manual labour harder and agriculture less productive in this area.
Every new coal power plant will aggravate the existing problem.
Climate change has a serious impact on children and their caregivers’ mental health and wellbeing, says Dr Garret Barnwell, a community psychology expert.
He recently produced a report on the mental health effects of climate change, commissioned by the CER. Its findings are clear: climate change poses a severe threat to the mental health and wellbeing of present and future generations. People living on the Highveld are particularly vulnerable to these threats.
Barnwell says the communities already exposed to adverse environmental and living conditions, such as those caused by air pollution, express a sense of constant psychological distress about their inability to prevent exposure.
They live in highly polluted communities without the means to move because of their socioeconomic status.
Barnwell describes the ways in which people experience climate change: through a range of traumatic events or exposure to climate change, including natural disasters, food insecurity and air pollution. This exposure leads to well-understood psychopathologies, including anxiety, depression and suicide. It could also decrease work productivity and increase hospitalisation.
Experts say the link between hunger and mental illness is well known. Maternal hunger and poor mental health can also have profound long-term consequences for both mother and child.
The unfolding climate emergency risks are becoming a mental health emergency in South Africa, Barnwell warns. “Climate change multiplies the threats that individuals already living on society’s margins have to face, and will have profound impacts on society as conditions worsen,” he says.
In Vosman, the drivers of air pollution are the same as those of climate change. Princess and Asemahle live in an area where air pollution levels often exceed acceptable standards, putting their health and development at risk.
Mathebula is determined to help to negotiate, on their behalf, for more room to breathe.
“We need to cancel coal,” she concludes.
They might live in seemingly different worlds, but Yola Mgogwana (14) and Anelisa Mgedezi (14) have much in common with Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (19). They are frustrated, anxious, and – above all – determined to create a different climate future from the one their generation is inheriting. These are ties that bind and unite young climate activists across the globe. Children bear the greatest burden of climate change. Not only are they more vulnerable than adults to extreme weather and its health effects, their world is becoming a more dangerous place in which to live.
“Our house is on fire,” an unblinking Thunberg told world leaders in Davos in 2019. While Thunberg was raising her voice on the global stage and igniting a mass movement, Yola and Anelisa were starting to find their voices as activists.
Yola attended her first global climate march at the age of 11 outside Parliament in Cape Town, delivering a speech about the need for climate justice to about 2,000 fellow learners. Today, she and Anelisa regularly speak out on issues that directly affect our planet – specifically their neighbourhood – at a tipping point in climate history.
“Yes, I do get angry because, like, the situations that we are facing, we shouldn’t be facing,” says Anelisa. “We should be living our lives, yet we are fighting for climate justice. And still, the government is in denial about the issue.”
The unfolding crisis of climate inaction
The science is clear: to avoid the dangerous climate change thresholds beyond which our planet will become far less inhabitable, we need to reduce global human-caused carbon dioxide emissions by almost half (45%) by 2030 and to almost zero by 2050.
According to the recent landmark assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of climate risks and our ability to adapt to them, many effects of global warming are now simply irreversible. The report, a doorstop of a publication with almost 3,700 pages, provides evidence clearly supporting claims of climate-related losses and damage. It shows, in no uncertain terms, that the state of the planet is even worse than we thought.
Although the report offers a dire warning about the consequences of inaction, it also highlights that timely adaptation responses in cities linked to climate-resilient development may offer hope in this unfolding crisis. However, the scientists warn of growing maladaptation problems in cities, saying that some response interventions might backfire on communities if not appropriately considered.
Experts say there is still a tiny window of opportunity to ensure inhabitable spaces in which to survive, thrive even. But this window is closing fast.
“We can see our world is burning,” says Anelisa. “It is shutting down because of climate change.”
Both teens are currently involved in a court case to stop the South African government from expanding its coal fleet in Mpumalanga with another 1,500MW power station.
Their interest is spurred by the direct links between coal-fired power stations, climate change, and its effects on their daily lives. The world’s climate is changing because of human actions, primarily the burning of fossil fuels.
The organisations bringing the #CancelCoal case are the African Climate Alliance, Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action and groundWork. These organisations, represented by the Centre for Environmental Rights, argue that plans to develop new coal plants threaten the environmental rights of present and future generations, their rights to life, dignity, equality, as well as children’s best interests.
Yola believes it is time for a just energy transition and climate justice for her generation. “I would like to see a future where there are no fossil fuels, and where we have switched to renewable energy.”
A room without a view
Yola and Anelisa live in Site B in Khayelitsha. Here, many children are raised without access to basic social and health services, amid wide-reaching structural inequalities. These factors are known to increase mental-health risks.
In this sprawling township, climate shocks are already multiplying the prevailing socioeconomic challenges, including access to safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter. Anelisa lives with her mom (37) and three cousins in a two-bedroom house. Their home is constructed of corrugated iron and cardboard sheets. “In summer, we are suffocating from this air,” Anelisa says. “It is like we are breathing in sewage.”
During heatwaves, their house sometimes becomes almost unbearable to live in, she says. Anelisa’s family moved from the Eastern Cape to Cape Town a few years ago, in search of a better life.
Anelisa loves gardening but has only a slither of sandy soil available for planting in the alley next to their house. Unfortunately, this space is often overrun by local gangsters who use it as a hideout or a getaway route, trampling on her seedlings.
The weight of water
Anelisa and her family have had to rebuild their home twice to hold back the Cape’s notorious storms. When it rains, she says, she often gets distraught. “It all started the first time our house was flooded in 2017. When the floods came, our house was already leaking. The rain was coming through the roof, and we had to place buckets everywhere. We had to move things around all night, and I was so stressed. I was worried about my school books and my personal documents getting wet. The rain was so heavy.”
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 multi-year drought between 2015 and 2018 risked Cape Town’s taps running dry.
She recalls: “In 2018, there was a severe drought here. So, we stored water in buckets and skipped on washing. We were so scared that our water would run out.” They experienced water cuts, often going without running water for days. “We had to walk a long way to queue for water or to buy water, which was expensive. So, we allowed ourselves only one glass of drinking water a day.
Fighting for the right to water
The drought also caused anguish for Yola and her family. She lives with her grandmother, aunt, two uncles and three cousins. Their two-room house is sandwiched between other dwellings, with a space of less than 40cm of sand between the structures, and no shade. Yola says the drought was distressing. “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. During the drought, we once went three days without water. We had to approach other communities for water until the third day when a truck arrived with the water for our community to fill up our buckets.”
The drought was followed by several incidents of flooding in the area, which caused more emotional distress. Their house has begun to sink slowly into the sand. Its floor level is now lower than the level of the alley outside, causing water to gush into their living space during heavy rains. In winter, freezing water often dams up to knee level inside their home.
“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.” Flooding has long been a challenge faced by many residents of Cape Town. Yola says: “When our home gets flooded, we cannot leave because we have nowhere else to go.”
When the floods came, our house was already leaking. The rain was coming through the roof, and we had to place
buckets everywhere. We had to move things around all night, and I
was so stressed
The future as it stands
Although 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. For example, the 2015–2018 drought in the Western Cape was three times more likely to occur because of the human influence on climate change.
Natural disasters have occurred more frequently in the past 20 years than in the 1990s. Moreover, in the past several decades, warming in the southern African interior has occurred at about twice the average 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 during which the taps would have run dry for its urban dwellers.
The kids aren’t alright
Yola says she is often concerned about her future and has feelings of worry, nervousness or unease about anything with an uncertain outcome. 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 in denial 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.”