The paper first identifies several entry points within the global climate framework to advance climate justice. It then provides insights into key findings from participatory research into community-led climate actions in Malawi and the Philippines, highlighting that affected communities are already pursuing climate justice actions that align with transformative transitional justice principles. The research shows the need for integrating communities' braided experience of harm and articulations of justice with the institutional infrastructure of the global climate regime to enable more transformative climate justice.

Applying this lens allows a more holistic view of both climate impacts and climate responses in Nkhulambe. Focusing on community experiences, it reveals that creeping climate change combined with disasters like Cyclone Freddy have resulted in a wider range of profound and lasting climate harms than commonly acknowledged by the public and even many climate experts. These include loss of life, physical health, homes, essential infrastructure, education, livelihoods, food security, cultural practices, social order, and mental health.

This lens also shows that residents have developed their own climate responses that respond more fully to the manifold climate harms they have experienced than top-down climate responses to date. Government-sponsored initiatives have tended to be short-term rather than sustained, and premised on one-way information transfers rather than two-way dialogue and collaboration between state actors and affected residents. In addition to being more pluralist and cooperative, residents' climate responses combine forward-looking solutions, such as emergency preparedness and reforestation, with backwards-looking solutions that acknowledge the truth of climate harms in the area and promote redress through memorialisation and advocacy for participatory reforms.

Nkhulambe residents' efforts can be read as climate-focused transformative transitional justice in practice. They are community-led measures that address climate harms which occurred in the past, while building solidarity in the present, in order to prevent and reduce the harms of future climate events. Moreover, they have the potential to complement and strengthen top-down national and international efforts, making them more inclusive and responsive to communities affected by climate harms, as well as opening the door to more equitable climate action.

Participants developed measures that demonstrate a more comprehensive way of conceptualising the effects of climate change – as a wide range of profound and long-lasting climate harms, rooted in and exacerbating structural inequalities – and of responding to them in backwards-looking and forward-looking ways that enable deeper social change. As such, this transformative transitional justice process represents a new methodology and opens fresh pathways towards climate justice, which bridge the local and the global.

The process consisted of four measures: 1) a truth-telling process on climate harms experiences, causes and solutions; 2) a commemoration event for past climate harms, combined with an educational workshop on future climate change responses; 3) the design and construction of a physical memorial honouring all those affected by climate harms; and 4) reform-focused advocacy for participatory climate change response planning and implementation at the municipal level.

Documenting the measures, their outcomes and the lessons learnt, this report shows what transformative transitional justice for climate harms can look like in practice, both for communities affected by climate harms and for practitioners and other stakeholders working towards transitional and climate justice. It argues that such a bottom-up process can complement and strengthen top-down national and international efforts, as well as serve as a discrete form of justice in transition itself.

For more publications, videos and images from this initiative, visit our project page.

This brief recommends structures and procedures that municipal councils and administrations can adopt to ensure a participatory approach to climate change responses in South Africa. They include, among others, collaborative assessments, establishment of representative advisory councils and community-based committees, participatory design and budgeting, and capacity building measures. Municipalities that ensure active participation can benefit not only from the expertise of local communities but also from their increased buy-in and support.

To learn more about our initiative on addressing climate harms in a participatory manner, visit our project page.

Our world-renowned South African Constitution that enshrines not only civil and political rights, but also socio-economic rights, guarantees the rights to dignity, adequate housing, healthcare, and access to basic services. Yet, when rural families are left to rebuild with no compensation, when children sleep beneath torn plastic sheets, and when schools remain cut off for weeks, these rights are not only unmet, but they are also systematically ignored. Three decades into our democracy, we are still forced to ask: Whose rights truly count in a crisis? Whose suffering must become a public spectacle before the state chooses to respond?

The government's duty is to respond and prevent foreseeable harm. As climate change accelerates floods, droughts, and extreme weather, rural regions nationwide are growing more exposed, not protected. Failure to invest in resilience is not just poor planning; it violates constitutional obligations.

An infrastructure system built in the past

As climate shocks grow more frequent and severe, South Africa's deepening infrastructure crisis has become impossible to ignore. The country is not built to withstand today's high-intensity rainfall, storm surges, or urban flooding. Much of our infrastructure was designed for a climate that no longer exists. Drainage systems are overwhelmed and poorly maintained, while roads and bridges routinely collapse under pressure. Even Cape Town, often hailed as the country's "best-run" metro, is not immune. In recent weeks, heavy rains displaced over 3,000 residents, triggering widespread localized flooding and laying bare the illusion of resilience.

Emergency shelters: a gaping void in disaster response

South Africa's near-total absence of designated emergency shelters and contingency planning is compounding the crisis. Our flood response remains reactive, fragmented, and chronically underfunded. Municipalities are stretched thin, and most lack the capacity and planning frameworks for rapid, coordinated action.

In an era of escalating climate risk, the absence of designated emergency shelters is not merely a logistical oversight but a profound social injustice. Climate resilience must begin with the most basic guarantee: safe survival spaces. In KwaZulu-Natal, more than 150 flood victims temporarily housed at the Bayside Hotel in Durban were evicted, leaving them without refuge, dignity, or support. This was not disaster relief; it was abandonment.

Things must change

Unless our government confronts the systemic failures laid bare by repeated flood disasters, we will continue to cycle through devastation and delayed response. What's needed is not another relief plan, but a strategic transformation rooted in spatial justice, resilient infrastructure, social equity, and accountable governance. The solutions already exist. What's missing is the political will to act with the same urgency as the storms that keep returning.

Our municipalities must do more than react; they must prepare. That means embedding community-based disaster response, investing in livelihood recovery, and ensuring that no one is left behind simply because of where they live or what they earn. Building resilience starts with listening to the communities most at risk and acting before the next disaster hits.

The upcoming National Colloquium on South Africa's NDC 2035 offers a critical platform to ensure that the country's climate commitments are both ambitious and inclusive. Beyond technical discussions, it is a moment to advocate for stronger integration of justice, equity, and community-driven solutions into the NDC framework.

This article was originally published on Cape Times.