As an advocate for climate justice with over two decades of experience in the adaptation space, I’ve witnessed the evolution of climate discourse and policy, globally and in Southern Africa. Despite progress, the aspect of vulnerability, while crucial to addressing climate justice inequalities, remains underexplored especially within Southern Africa.

My journey started in Lesotho, where I worked with smallholder farmers exploring how seasonal climate forecasts could support their agricultural decisions and livelihoods. This rooted vulnerability in reality for me – as a lived reality for communities worldwide, particularly in regions like Africa. Here, the consequences of climate change are acutely and disproportionately felt, but these are often the voices you hear from the least.  

The global narrative on climate adaptation has long been dominated by the perspectives and priorities of the global North, perpetuating a knowledge gap that undermines effective action, often overlooking valuable insights from African communities, policy makers and scientists. This lack of contextual specificity and localization of interventions undermine adaptation efforts and exacerbate existing inequalities.

Scientists, NGOs, communities, policy makers and citizen groups within South Africa, can see vulnerability as not just a challenge to overcome, but a lens through which to reimagine climate justice.

Moving climate adaptation equity issues into sharper focus for practitioners, researchers, civil society and officials is vital if we are to make progress on designing urban adaptation interventions that really meet the needs of the most vulnerable communities.

The vulnerability concept remains important in helping us to understand who is most vulnerable and why. This is necessary to ensure that the most vulnerable do not shoulder the largest burden of climate impacts, which is the current situation. Vulnerability assessments can help us to understand the nuances of which groups or individuals are more sensitive to climate risk or where adaptive capacity sits. Previous work I have done with the Climate System Analysis Group (CSAG), for the then National Department of Environment Affairs, created a framework for climate risk and vulnerability assessments aimed at enabling conceptual alignment on these issues.

Despite increasing vulnerability, communities I have engaged with  have shown remarkable agency, implementing innovative adaptation measures despite limited resources. Informal settlements, in particular, face heightened climate risks, necessitating action to prevent vulnerable households from bearing the burden alone.

Recognizing these challenges, I hosted a workshop on Equitable Urban Climate Adaptation, bringing together stakeholders from Southern Africa and some from Europe, aimed at bridging the knowledge gap and prioritising African perspectives in global adaptation agendas.

The workshop sought to foster collaborative thinking to feed into conceptualising and enacting what equitable urban adaptation might look like in African cities. We wanted to co-produce critical questions and strengthen networks through this collaboration, especially among those working in the academic and practitioner space. It provided a space to facilitate collaborative thinking, emphasizing the need to address structural inequities, incorporate local realities, nurture quality relationships, and empower marginalized voices. These themes underscored the importance of moving beyond rhetoric towards tangible action in pursuit of climate justice.

Now, in my current position as Director of the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town (ACDI), I remain committed to advancing this agenda and fostering meaningful change. Climate justice needs to move beyond global negotiations and conference hall discussions and permeate through policies, actions, and institutions across scales, ensuring that the most vulnerable communities are not left behind, and instead are central to our pursuit for climate justice.