Seminar held by Dr. Memory Reid.

How does the climate crisis affect the lives of ordinary people? What can South Africa learn from other countries that had to deal with interruptions in electricity supplies? In this presentation, Memory Reid will draw on an innovative and original research project that linked over space and time the very real impacts of climate change on the livelihoods of informal traders in Harare, Zimbabwe. It focuses specifically on energy insecurity caused by rising temperatures and drought for electricity generation through hydro-electric schemes in the Kariba sub-basin of the Zambezi River Basin. The consequences of energy insecurity and interruptions in electricity supplies had severe consequences for informal traders who relied on electricity generated at the Kariba Dam. She also found that “poor households were disproportionately affected by the unstable electricity supply because they could not afford alternative energy sources to continue business during power cuts.” Her study highlights “the vulnerability of poor urban populations and their diminished capacity to adapt to climate change induced stresses.” Dr

Memory Reid completed her doctorate in the Faculty of Science, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, in 2021. She is currently attached to the Global Change Institute at Wits and is part of a collaborative research project in urban and peri-urban South Africa on Water, Energy and Food, entitled Eco-imagining.