Climate change hits hard

• News & Highlights

The advent of the much-feared global warming and El Niño phenomena is often talked about as a distant threat.

However, these conditions finally hit South Africa this year, causing fear and confusion as the government and other stakeholders scrambled to contain the problem.

Drought, extreme heatwaves and water shortages became the reality for most cities across the country.

Government departments responsible for planning had ignored experts and dismissed them as doomsday conspirators and had waited until disaster struck to get into panic mode.

The answer, experts said, lay in preparing for the future, investing in measures to save water, setting up structures to safeguard these and promoting civil responsibility being among the most crucial strategies of all.

And, according to the experts, the higher temperatures still await us into 2016.