South Africa- Cape Town

The Urban Pathways Implementation Tracker
is tracking the Projects Progress and delivers information on its four main outputs:

​INFORM, INSPIRE, INITIATE & IMPLEMENTATION

city profile: Cape Town

South Africa´s Nationally Determined Contributions: 
South Africa targets to achieve Co2 emission as 34% below BAU by 2020, and 42% below BAU by 2025.

Population: 56,5 million (2017)
Total urban population: 65, 3% (2016)
Urban population growth: 2,38 % in 2016
GDP: 294.8 billion USD (2016, World Bank)
Total surface area: 1 221 037 Km2

The City of Cape Town has a high carbon footprint compared to other similar cities due to its poor energy security matrix, is rapidly urbanising, with urban sprawl and increase vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. In 2001, the City of Cape Town adopted an integrated Metropolitan Environmental Policy identifying a need to shift from business-as- usual to a targeted sustainable agenda. The city has recognised that its legacy issues of spatial planning and transport does not adhere to its international obligation and the SDGs.

Energy: The City of Cape Town has begun to implement energy efficiency initiatives that aims to reduces its GHGemissions and contribute to positive climate changemitigation efforts. These include energy efficiencymechanisms for building and facilities, replacingstreet lighting and traffic lights, smart meters installation, efficiency strategy for similar projects in solidwaste, transport and water, engagement with the private sector; rollout of solar water heating and heat pumps through accredited installers and low income energy services (Naidoo, 2017).

Transport: The City of Cape Town is the most congested city in South Africa with 80% of the peak traffic currently being made up of private car users. The City of Cape Town has begun to focus on spatial transformation that is Transit-Oriented Development – a transit-let development agenda at all levels of the built environment. The City of Cape Town has institutionalised a Transport and Urban Development (TDA) authority which is to be responsible for all transport and urban development issues. In 2018, ten electric busseswhere integrated into the public bus fleet, a call fortender for a bike sharing system was sent out, a policy change to begin a ticketing system for all public transportation systems into one single ticket system is also under way. The City of Cape Town’s e-mobility strategy also includes the development of an EV framework, developing the existing infrastructure further and improving bicycle lands usage and awareness campaigns.

​Waste management:  In its waste-to-energy programme the City has begun to treat sludge waste in bio-digesters, planned installations of CHP plants, key water sites are being assessed to analysis better usage and technological update and solar PV installation feasibility studieshave been conducted. A landfill gas infrastructure for flaring was set up in 2017 in the Coast Park, Bellville,Visserhok, and Helderberg facilities. The Rehabilitati- on of the Atlantis, Vissershok, Waterleaf and Witsandlandfill sites are in process and an additional designand development of an integrated management facility in Helderberg is planned (Naidoo, 2017). Severe droughts have affected the City of Cape Town during 2017 signalling a desperate need for policymakers to speedily adjust to the climate change reality.

factsheets on energy, transport and waste management

The factsheets provide a basic introduction to specific measures in the areas of energy, mobility and waste management, which aims to provide a basket of possible solutions to partner cities.

UP Factsheets

e-learning programme

E-learning programme builds on the toolbox and factsheets and aims to provide a better understanding of possible actions, highlighting the experiences from the implementation of measures in other cities building on the wealth of knowledge of international experts. ​

UP E-Learning

Action Tracker

The Urban Pathways Action Tracker provides an overview of the project’s activities in the cities and reflects on the various action areas. The main objective of this is to share learnings with other cities and identify opportunities for synergies with other projects and initiatives.

UP Action Tracker

capacity building 

The Urban Pathways Conference took place from 16 to 20 October in Berlin, Germany, with the objective to discuss concrete low-carbon energy, mobility and waste-management solutions to deliver on the New Urban Agenda. This event showcased activities of cities working together on sustainable urban development and helped taking this further into a joint program of action. ​

capacity building

change maker programme

The Urban Change Maker Programme actively trains and involves motivated junior and senior experts to contribute our joint effort of delivering on the New Urban Agenda with concepts for low-carbon urban energy, mobility and waste management systems.

Urban Change Maker

City-to-city partnerships

The partner cities will be supported by exchanging ideas with their peers in other cities who have developed successful urban mobility, energy and resource management solutions. This will focus on the story behind the success on governance, finance and regulatory issues. ​

regional replication

Implementation is the main focus of the project. As result of the structured process of the project we will identify feasible urban energy, mobility and resources management options in our partner cities. We work closely with development bank partners and financing sources, such as the Green Climate Fund towards assessments of the feasibility of concrete implementation projects.

policy environment assessment on South Africa

During the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen South Africa committed itself to reduce domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 34% in 2020 and 42% by 2025 below the business-as-usual (BAU) trajectory subject to the provision of adequate financial,technological and capacity-building support by developed countries (Woolard & Davis, 2015). According to SA’s Peak Plateau and Decline (PPD) pledge, it will peak its national emissions between 2020 and 2025, plateau for approximately a decade, and decline in absolute terms thereafter. South Africa’s NDCs target to limit GHG emissions including land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) to between 398 and 614 Mt CO2eq over the period 2025–2030 is equivalent to a 20–82% increase on 1990 levels excluding LULUCF. South Africa’s aspiration in the long-term is that total annual GHG emissions will be in the ran- ge of 212 to 428 MtCO2e by 2050, having declined in absolute terms from 2036 onwards. In response to itsidentification of mitigation targets South Africa developed a National Climate Change Response White paper (SA Department of Environmental Affairs, 2011). The Key elements of SA’s overall approach to mitigation include (SA Department of Environmental Affairs, 2011):

Identifying desired sectoral mitigation contribution: defining desired emission reduction outcomesfor each sector and sub-sector of the economy.
• Defining Carbon Budgets for significant GHGemitting sectors and/or sub-set.
• Implementing a requirement that companies and economic sectors or sub-sectors for whom desired emission reduction outcomes have been established to prepare and submit mitigation plans that set out how they intend to achieve the desired emission reduction outcomes.
• Use different types of mitigation approaches, policies, measures and actions that optimise the mitigation outcomes as well as job creation and othersustainable development benefits.
• Using the market: using a range of economic instruments to support the system of desired emissions reduction outcomes, including the appropriate pricing of carbon and economic incentives.
• A national monitoring system of data collec- tion to provide detailed and accurate emission data to support the analysis of the impact of mitigation measures.

Transport: 
South Africa’s transport subsector is the second-highest contributor to GHG emissions – emitting 61 Mt CO2 in 2013 (Posada, 2018), accounting for 13% of total emissions and for 453 924 Gg CO2eq over the period 2000 - 2010. In 2010, road transport was responsible for 91.2% of transport related GHG emissions (SA Department of Transport, 2017), 7.7% was from domestic civil aviation and 1.07% from rail- ways. Emissions in road transport increased because of motor vehicle sales that increased from 4.2% in 2000 to 15.7% in 2010 (Stats SA, 2011) – motor vehicles are closely associated with higher social status in South Africa. Without mitigation efforts the transport sector is projected to emit a total of 136 Gg CO2eq by year 2050 (SA Department of Transport, 2017). Motor gas con- tributed 64.9% towards the road transport fuel consumption in 2010, followed by gas/diesel oil (35%). Between the years 2000 and 2010 there was an increase in the percentage contribution of gas/diesel oil to the road transport consumption (8.2%), and a corresponding decline in the contribution from motor gasoline (SA Department of Transport, 2017). South Africa’s railway sector uses electricity as its main source of energy, with diesel being the only other energy source. GHG emissions from transport sub-sector activities have increased by 32.2% from 36 016 GgCO2eq in the year 2000 to 47 607 GgCO2eq in 2010 (SA Department of Transport, 2017).

Energy: 
South Africa has embarked on energy and electricity planning actions to begin to transform the energy sector – moving away from its heavy dependence on fossil fuel. Some political hurdles have been present up until 2017, although a new administration has taken power since the beginning of 2018 – policy programmes are underdevelopment to begin to transform the energy sector moving towards renewable energy, increases in efficiency, and reduction inemissions intensity (SA Department of Environment, 2015). Moreover, SA has begun to rollout the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REI4P), approving some Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer projects and further projects are in consideration (Khumalo, 2018). The current administration also intends to also create a South African Green Fund, which would in- clude contributions from both domestic and international sources. SA has also been developing policy instruments, including a carbon tax, desired emission reduction outcomes (DEROs) for particular sectors, company-level carbon budgets, and regulatory stan-dards and controls for specific GHG pollutants andemitters (USAID, 2017).

Waste management
SA’s INDCs indicates that uncertainties exit in the reporting of emission in agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU). South Africa is also a water scare country burdened with a national infrastructure that was not developed to support its total populations (due to the legacy of apartheid and its history of inequality). In addition, investment in wastewater treatment works has not remained in-line with the growth in demand and use. SA has committed to developing a Waste management Flagship programme that will review and implement GHG mitigation potential of the waste management sector by investing in waste-to-energy, within the solid, semi-solid, and liquid-waste management sectors, especially the generation, capture, conversion and/or use of methane emissions. SA has enacted the Waste Act and National Waste Management Strategy which places a great emphasis on waste minimisation, reuse, recycling and recovery of waste. Yet, 90% of waste still ends up in local land-fills since remains and perception continues that it isa more expedient option. At the local municipal level challenges exit including skills development; lack of resources, i.e. capacity, funding, technologies; inadequate integrated waste management planning, waste data and better infrastructure development using advancements in technology (van Jaarsveldt, 2016). In addition, general societal awareness amongst the general public, consumers, and business owners, islacking regarding the benefits of waste managementand recycling.

policy development

Policy measures at the local and national level can be critical to the transformation of urban energy, mobility and resource sectors, for example they regulate systems, provide technological standards, generate funding, impose taxes and set policy objectives. As part of the cooperation with the partner cities, Urban Pathways provides on-demand policy advice. 

project development

One of the core objectives is the development and implementation of projects that help decarbonising urban energy, mobility and resource sectors. The projects concepts that are considered to be viable will be later developed into bankable projects for which funding will be sought. ​

funding solutions

An overview of funding solutions is provided in the toolbox. This section includes updates on the specific funding options that are considered for the partner city.  

implementation facility

The Implementation Facility coordinates the delivery of the project and creates synergies with other initiatives working in the Urban Pathways areas and regions. The facility focuses on knowledge exchange, co-creation and collaboration with partner projects working in the Urban Pathways cities.  

UP Facility

action plans

The Action Plans summarise key on-going initiatives and identify opportunities for further action with a focus on cross-sectoral synergies and policy interactions between the local and national level. 

bankable projects

Urban Pathways develops scalable pilot projects in cooperation with the partner cities at a neighbourhood level with an aim to provide a proof of concept of urban energy, mobility and waste management solutions. 
Based on the pilot project demonstrators, larger-scale projects will be developed to utilise the CO2mitigation potential of an integrated urban energy, mobility and resource management approach and seize the opportunities for contributions the Sustainable Development Goals. This will be done in close cooperation with finance partners and will be geared towards the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility and similar sources of funding and financing.         

implementation support

The Urban Pathways team actively support partner cities in the implementation of urban energy, mobility and waste management solutions. This support includes activities jointly initiative under this project and other relevant actions currently on-going in the partner cities.