Partnerships needed to tackle Earth’s ‘polycrisis’

Collaborations are becoming increasingly essential to deal with global instabilities. This was the message delivered by Prof Stephanie Midgley, climate change and risk scientist of the Western Cape Department of Agriculture, at the 10th International Table Grape Symposium.

The transition to a more sustainable future not only revolved around climate change, but included issues such as a nature and ecosystem function transition, energy and decarbonisation transition, food systems, dietary and nutritional transitions, the circular economy and population and human well-being transitions.

“Many of these instabilities are interlinked, which is why some people refer to it as a ‘polycrisis’ and why it should be dealt with in a systematic way,” Midgley said.

Most of the instabilities were driven by environmental issues. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2023, six of the risks facing the world over the next two years had an environmental element, whereas environmental risks were identified as the top four risks for the next decade. The top two related to climate change, namely failure to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Midgley referred to research on planetary boundaries done in 2023, which found that six of the nine boundaries had been transgressed, putting the Earth “well outside the safe operating space for humanity”.

Many of these were linked to agriculture, which meant production had to be changed to facilitate a transition to a more sustainable future, which Midgley defined as the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to do so.

The change should not be limited to primary production, but be extended across value chains and food systems. “The whole value chain must work together to share and reduce the burden, and unlock opportunities.”

Transformative action now would be cheaper in the long run than having to respond to a full-blown crisis. The clearing of invasive alien trees from water catchments, for instance, increased water-available resources by 15% to 29% while helping with flow regulation, reducing erosion, improving water quality, reducing fire risks, creating jobs and reducing the impact of climate change on hydrological drought severity.

To this end, the Western Cape Agriculture Department, with the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, completed almost 1 500km of river maintenance management plans over the past 10 years, involving more than 1 200 farms. Landowners had taken ownership of the restoration when the department was finished.