Climate threats are not gender-neutral.
Women are disproportionately more likely to be impacted by natural disasters.
Let’s talk Climate for Social’s Sake.
Talk isn’t always cheap! It is through platforms such as Critical Conversations that we are able to drive thinking, learning and bring together new or unknown perspectives. This virtual series kicks off this year with the Millen-Z Edition, where we amplify the voices, concerns and solutions from a range of young, savvy climate warriors. Climate change is on all our minds – so in this edition, we focus on the topic of Climate for Social’s Sake. It’s a shared opportunity to dissect and explore the impact climate action has on empowering our most vulnerable communities. For example, women and children, who are the most affected during climate shocks.
Can we sustain South Africa, despite the extreme climate conditions coming our way?
Are you aware of all the extreme climate events (and their outcomes) experienced in South Africa? These are just a few: extreme heat stress, extreme weather events, disease outbreaks, severe flooding, crop failure and water stress. Studies show that following climate disasters, it is generally harder for the poor and vulnerable to recover their economic positions. Like many other developing countries, South Africa is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Join us as we explore the short- and long-term options to address these crises.
Innovative, courageous conversations start here
We’ve created Critical Conversations to tackle the dynamics of sustainability and impact investing. It highlights the need for educated and authentic conversations that explore the right ideas, with the right people, to continue to move the best solutions forward.
What’s your view?
Which of the following is true about climate issues in South Africa
Ready to talk?
Date: Monday 21 February 2022 | Time: 10.00 – 11.30 SAST
We are in the process of certifying the Climate for Social’s Sake edition for Continuous Professional Development (CPD) points with the Financial Planning Institute (FPI). In line with the FPI CPD policy, CPD certificates may only be provided to participants who joined the CPD activity using their unique link and whose attendance for the full duration of the CPD activity can be verified by the attendance data.
Meet our panel.
MC: Lerato Mbele
Business and News Presenter
Lerato is a business and news presenter well known for raising Africa’s profile in world news and current affairs. Lerato has spoken at and moderated televised debates for the World Economic Forum on Africa, the World Bank and IMF annual meetings, African Development Bank summits, the UN Climate Change Summit COP-17 and has hosted the televised presidential debates for the Nigerian Economic Summit Group. Lerato is a previous business presenter for BBC World Television and was the host of Africa Business Report. Before that, Lerato was a senior business anchor for CNBC Africa and a national public broadcaster of South Africa.
Teboho Makhabane
ESG and Impact Implementation Specialist
Teboho is an ESG and Impact Implementation Specialist at Sanlam Investments. She was previously at Edge Growth Ventures, where she developed meaningful experiences in investments into private businesses under commercial mandates that sought social and environmental impact. She spent time as a research analyst earlier in her career, researching and evaluating impact investment strategies across the continent, assessing the extent of their social and environmental impact.
Teboho is passionate about directing investment capital to address the most pressing social and environmental issues in society. As an ESG and Impact investing practioner, Teboho monitors and advises on sustainable investing.
Akhona Xotyeni
Youth Advocate at the Royal Danish Embassy and Masters candidate in Environmental Management
Akhona is a Just Green Transition Youth Ambassador for the Royal Danish Embassy in South Africa and a World International Model United Nations content writer. She is also a youth climate consultant, diplomat, public speaker and writer on climate related topics and policies under multiple-organisations. Moreover, she is a thought leader for the Mail & Guardian.
She was also part of the UN Youngo Human Rights, Food Systems Summit and Indigenous Populations Working Groups. In 2019 she was a panelist at the UN PAGE Ministerial Conference and the EU-SA Youth Climate Summit, and a keynote speaker at the UNFCCC Race To Zero Dialogues the following year. She was also a youth newsroom reporter for the 2021 Climate Adaptation Summit, a panelist at the Swedish Embassy and a high-level keynote speaker at the European Union.
Akhona holds a BA in Social Dynamics and a Bcom Honours in Environmental Management from Stellenbosch University.
Ayakha Melithafa
Climate Justice Activist and founder of the Ayakha Melithafa Foundation
Ayakha is the youngest commissioner on the Presidential Climate commission in South Africa and Public representative of the African Climate Alliance. The alliance is a youth-led climate advocacy group that organised the #climatestrike protests in Cape Town in collaboration with more than a million youths around the world.
She is a recipient of the Charlotte Mannya Maxeke Institute’s Women of Firsts Award. Furthermore, she was nominated as one of South Africa’s Most Powerful Women by the Mail and Guardian in 2020. She is also one of five winners of the Matrics In Antarctica programme.
Her activism has seen her represent youth voices from the global South on various national and international platforms including the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and COP26 in Scotland. She is also a graduate of Project 90 by 2030’s YouLead Initiative.
Luleka Dlamini
PhD Candidate
Luleka is currently in her second year of a joint PhD between the University of Cape Town and Wageningen University & Research which is based in the Netherlands. She is broadly interested in transdisciplinary research that focuses on climate change, crop modelling, and the use of earth observation in the African context.
Her PhD research focuses on integrating earth observation and crop modelling to assess climate-smart agricultural options for smallholder farmers in data-limited areas of South Africa. Luleka is also a contributing author in the African Chapter of the global-reach Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report that will be released soon. Her work here focuses on projected climate change risks to regionally important food and cash crops. She holds an M.Sc. in Environmental and Geographical Science, specialising in Atmospheric Science from the University of Cape Town.
Morategi Kale
PhD Researcher in Human Geography
Morategi is a PhD researcher in Human Geography at the University of Oxford. Her research is focused on the material and emotional experiences of graduate youth unemployment in South Africa.
Before Oxford, Morategi was involved in a number of policy participation, youth, and climate change activities. She has won several accolades, including ‘best presenter’ at SAIIA’s Environmental Sustainability Project. As a result, she was invited to attend COP17 where she was one of the young people who compiled the Durban Youth Protocol. In 2015, she attended COP21 in France as the official youth delegate for South Africa. While at COP21, Morategi spoke on a panel alongside the former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, about young women in climate change. She was also invited by the African Development Bank to speak on a ‘Green Jobs’ panel about youth, unemployment and climate change.
Looking back.
In the previous editions of Critical Conversations we discussed:
June
The (South) African investment Opportunity
September
Climate choice or climate challenge?
November
The future of sustainability: Small steps and giant leaps.
The FPI has awarded 1.5 CPD points each for these editions. If you missed them live, you can watch the offline events using one of these links and complete a short quiz, to earn your points.
