Against the backdrop of the most severe anthropogenic climate change in human history, the Umbrella for Democratic Change and the Botswana Congress Party’s election manifestoes stiff-arm this life-and-death challenge while the Botswana Democratic Party’s only fist-bumps it.
Interestingly enough, the voter constituency that will be affected the most by climate change (the youth) in years to come is the one that is most likely to decide the outcome of this year’s general election. The manifestoes make grand promises about how the different political parties would dramatically improve the country’s economic fortunes, notably through agriculture and tourism. Climate change is going to frustrate such plans. According to the Department of Meteorology, Botswana’s water, livestock, forestry, crop and health sectors are highly vulnerable to climate change.
This phenomenon is already having an adverse impact on water availability as well as fauna, crop and vegetation growth and has given rise to climate-related diseases like malaria and under-5’s diarrhoea. By the estimate of a South African expert, the additional health care costs for climate change-related cases of malaria in Botswana in 2025 will be between P104 million and P1.4 billion. According to a study by Sennye Masike of the University of Botswana and Peter Urich of the University of Waikato in New Zealand, the cost of supplying water from boreholes in Botswana could increase by 23 percent due to increased hours of pumping under drier and warmer conditions.
In the Kgatleng district, where this study was conducted, warming will cause an annual increase of more than 20 percent in cattle water demand by 2050. The African Development Bank says that as a result of climate change, about two-thirds of arable land in Africa will be lost by 2025. Africa’s lead negotiator at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and UB lecturer, David Lesolle, says that climate change poses a serious threat to Botswana’s wildlife-based tourism. In its latest report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that in the future, tourism flow patterns will be fundamentally altered due to a redistribution of tourism supply from warmer and poorer to colder and richer countries.
The report also says that climate change is already wreaking havoc on labour productivity, with heat stress causing some in the global workforce to be virtually useless in the afternoon. “Productivity has already declined during the hottest and wettest seasons in parts of Africa and Asia, with more than half of afternoon hours projected to be lost to the need for rest breaks in 2050 in South East Asia and up to a 20 percent loss in global productivity in 2100,” it states. The scenario notwithstanding, climate change doesn’t get substantive treatment from party manifestoes.
At this point, it is impossible to verify the veracity of the UDC’s claim that “No one is left out” but one is for sure: the manifesto leaves out climate change. The manifesto’s theme is “Embrace Change” but the one thing it is certainly not embracing is climate change. The reality is that when the climate changes for the worst, no type of umbrella would be of any use. UDC (which is a coalition of the Botswana National Front, the Botswana Alliance Movement and the Botswana People’s Party) prefaces its electoral promises by asserting that the challenges that Botswana faces cannot all be addressed in one document.
The resulting summary is a five-pillar framework designed “to assist our country to implement corrective steps necessary for Botswana to take a giant leap.” This framework is unclear on how it will interact with the costs and consequences of climate change. “Fertile areas in northern, eastern, and southern parts of Botswana could significantly improve crop and agricultural produce if smart ways of developing irrigation infrastructure were implemented,” says the UDC manifesto, not once stating how this will occur within the context of climate change.
The Botswana Congress Party’s manifesto says that the party recognises the central role of agriculture in the economy and rural development. The party expresses intent “to restore the pride, dignity and confidence of Botswana citizens and expand opportunities for meaningful economic activities in the rural areas” through enhanced agricultural production. It identifies “attainment of food self-sufficiency, upliftment of the rural economy and improved livelihoods” as the cornerstones of its agricultural policy.
The party also says that it aims to develop tourism as a strategic industry that can contribute to national development by generating more revenue, creating more jobs and providing leisure and entertainment to both citizens and foreigners. To its credit, the Botswana Democratic Party acknowledges climate change as an issue worthy of consideration, noting that its effects are increasingly becoming visible and stressing the need to manage the risks associated with it. The manifesto says that “poor rainfall due to climactic change is likely to result in poor crop yields, resulting in significant macro-economic consequences, particularly with respect to poverty eradication.”
The party promises to develop policies and appropriate laws to reduce carbon emissions and to avoid adverse consequences of climate change. On the whole, the ruling party’s manifesto does little more than give climate change a half-attentive ‘wassup-dawg?’ fist-bump and then pimp-stroll on to other less urgent issues. The section on climate change is the shortest in terms of word count (158 words) in the whole manifesto and compared to other sections, is way too general. The IPCC report shows that the BDP government is not doing enough in one very important regard. Tourism is Botswana’s second forex earner but according to the 2014 IPCC report, “stakeholders in climate-sensitive sectors ÔÇô for example, Botswana’s tourism industry – have yet to develop and implement adaptation strategies.”
In fairness to political parties, ultimately election manifestoes are a reflection of what the voting public is interested in. A political science lecturer at UB, Dr. Bashi Mothusi, says that generally, parties give prominence to bread-and-butter issues because those will resonate with the public. “As a nation we don’t talk enough about climate change because we don’t believe that it affects our daily lives. Voters themselves are not interested in the issue,” says Mothusi, adding that even political leaders don’t give climate change the attention it deserves.
