Climate change

How Cape Town is affected

Climate change is affecting, and will affect, people whose homes, household goods, money, pensions, savings, natural assets, livelihood support networks and food security are damaged or destroyed through drought, floods, heat waves and the social dislocation that these events bring.

The first people to suffer these consequences are the poor, who are most likely to live in areas at risk.

Already in Cape Town a significant number of disasters and events have been associated with weather conditions. These include the Cape Flats floods (1994 and 2001), the Manenberg wind storms (1999 and 2002), the South Peninsula fires (2000), the Joe Slovo informal settlement fires (2000, 2004, 2005), cut-off low severe storms (2003, 2004, 2005) and recurrent severe droughts (2002-2005).

And now, a 2008 sea-level rise risk assessment conducted on behalf of the City of Cape Town concluded that within the next 25 years there is a 85% chance that 60,9km² (2% of the Metro area) of the area in which we live will be covered by sea for a short period. The expected loss of property value is just under R20bn.

Other ways in which Cape Town is being and will be affected by climate change include:

• increased water stress in the city due to reduction in rainfall and increased evaporation (caused by increased temperature)
• a rise in sea-level, which will increase the vulnerability of beaches, shorelines and coastal developments and infrastructure to storms and erosion
• increased temperatures, which could lead more intense fires, more frequently
• damage to infrastructure by severe storms
• damage to health, well-being and livelihoods, especially through the risk of fires, changes in air pollution and loss of social networks caused by disruption and dislocation