TOWARDS A CLIMATE OF CHANGE: a CRITICAL call for clean energy and reimagined leadership in South Africa’s vulnerable climates.

The Critical African Studies Programme (CAST) and the School of the Arts (SOTA) hosted a symposium on 20 June 2023. Towards A Climate of Change facilitated interdisciplinary and international collaboration regarding South Africa’s adaptation to the current climate change crisis.

At the forefront of the discussion was Elandskloof, a rural village in the Cederberg in the  Western Cape.  In 1996, Elandskloof hit news headlines as the first successful land claim in a newly democratic South Africa. However, over the coming decades, the contradictions in a deeply flawed restitution process came to the fore: land without the capital to develop it, and a group of claimants many decades removed from a meaningful relationship with the business of rural livelihoods, carrying the scars of the struggle for survival under apartheid.  Layered onto these traumatic has been the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Professor Siona O’Connell has been working in Elandskloof since 2017 as a result of her research on land restitution, poverty, and inequality in South Africa.

In response to a changing climate and against historical trauma, Professor  O’Connell and Dr. Dominique Wnuczek-Lobaczewski from SOTA teamed up with Dr. Kate Donovan and Dr. YoungHwa Cha from the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute (ECCI) at the University of Edinburgh (UoE). Their project,  “CRITICAL Food Heritage as a Tool for Adaptation: Climate change resilience through hybrid indigenous knowledge systems in South Africa” project aims to provide research impact,  building upon the initial 'CRITICAL: Cultural Heritage Risk and Impact Tools for Integrated and Collaborative Learning' project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the UK Government Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS). The CRITICAL projects seek to  explore heritage impacts from disasters and climate change, working with research partners in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and South Africa and to develop applied food heritage narratives and a garden that support and empower the people of Elandskloof, South Africa, in the face of rapid climate change

Over the past three years, the CRITICAL team has visited Elandskloof multiple times. This year, UP  students from the Honours Museum Heritage and Preservation Studies course had a field trip to the site. Most recently, a greenhouse was erected to cultivate sustainable and climate-resilient food production for the community. The success of the project has prompted discussion into the next chapter of the Elandskloof development program,  clean energy.

In attendance at the symposium was Mr. Neil Cole, from the Energy Transition  (JET) Investment Plan Project Management Unity. He shared South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET IP), which is set on the country’s transition to clean energy transition. The initial phase of JET IP launched this year (2023) and is set to end in 2027. The plan will see a move towards clean energy, expanded energy access, energy security, and sustainable and diversified livelihoods.

The turn towards clean energy is an incentive that the CRITICAL Project will tackle with the Elandskloof community. There is an emphasis on engaging the youth in this endeavour and running leadership programmes in tandem with the next project phase. Speaking on next-generation leadership in South Africa during the symposium, Dr. Derick de Jong and Ph.D. candidate Elma Akob from the Albert Luthuli Leadership Institute (ALLI) at UP delivered insight into the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration in leadership. Equipping the youth to become resourceful and reliable leaders in areas of environmental, social, and economic justice compels us to reimagine leadership, not as it is but as it should and could be. ALLI’s mission is to contribute to this reimagining of leadership through societal, scholarship, and educational engagement.

Towards A Climate Of Change examined what it means to work with precarious communities in  dialogic  and innovative ways.

Reading references and links:

Albert Luthuli Leadership Institute. 2023. Available at: https://www.up.ac.za/albert-luthuli-leadership-institute.

CRITICAL Project. 2022. Available at: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/aa83c390a22e44598222b7b3515719cf.

Cole, N & Ngwenya, S. 2023. PCC Energy Transition Recommendations and JET-IP. Available at: https://www.climatecommission.org.za/events/just-transition-framework-implementation-consultation-lephalale.

Crowley, K., Jackson, R., O’Connell, S., Karunarthna, D., Anantasari, E., Retnowati, A., & Niemand, D. 2022. Cultural heritage and risk assessments: Gaps, challenges, and future research directions for the inclusion of heritage within climate change adaptation and disaster management. Climate Resilience and Sustainability, 1(45). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/cli2.45.

Just Transition Framework. 2023. Presidential Climate Commission. Available: https://www.climatecommission.org.za/just-transition-framework.

O’Connell, S. 2018. Uitgesmyt. South Africa, 25 minutes. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXZdQ87qv28.