Joburg to host a major climate change indaba
03 February 2017
City of Joburg officials will be hosting a delegation of climate change experts from the City of Paris over a period of five days from February 6 to February 10.
The conference, which is spearheaded by the City of Johannesburg’s Member of the Mayoral Committee for Environment and Infrastructure Services Cllr Anthony Still, will be held at the Metro Centre in Braamfontein from Monday February 6 and proceed to be hosted at various other City offices until February 10.
The conference will explore how major world cities such as Johannesburg and Paris could cooperate to mitigate the impact of global warming and climate change.
South Africa and France are among 195 countries that adopted the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate agreement at the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) in December 2015. Known as the Paris Agreement (PA), the deal commits signatories to reducing and maintaining “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius”.
A high-powered Paris delegation is expected to arrive in Johannesburg ahead of the start of the conference.
Among the top officials attending from the City of Paris are Yann Francoise, head of Climate and Energy Strategy; François Hote of the City’s Urbanisation Department; Anne Girault from the Climate Agency in the Department of Heritage and Architecture; Anne-Gaelle Baptiste, an expert in building-energy efficiency; and Anne Sophie Monceau, from the City’s International Relations Department.
The week-long programme is based on the important work done by the City of Johannesburg’s entities that implement climate mitigation projects including City Power, Joburg Water, Pikitup, Johannesburg Roads Agency and Johannesburg Property Company.
The conference will be held in line with the agreement signed by the two cities, C40 and the Agence Francaise de Development (AFD).
As members of the global C40 Network, Paris and Johannesburg are committed to combating and mitigating the impact of climate change. The two cities have, through a Memorandum of Understanding, pledged to work together to improve the cities’ resilience to global warming and reduce their carbon footprints.
The MoU covers technical co-operation on climate change, in particular, through the setting up of multi-sectoral teams of climate-change experts. In November, the City of Johannesburg’s Mayoral Committee adopted the Climate Change Strategic Framework and the City of Paris, AFD and C40 have all agreed build on this in offering technical support to assist in developing a comprehensive and integrated climate-change strategy.
The programme kicks off with an introductory meeting with key MMCs and executive directors, on Monday February 6.
On Tuesday February 7, the programme will focus on urban planning and transportation. The City’s plans of building a more compact and dense city supported by the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, (both climate-benefit projects) will be central to the discussions, will form part of the discussions.
Wednesday February 8 has been reserved for discussions on buildings-energy efficiency, whereas Thursday February 9 will be used to shine the spotlight on waste management.
On Friday February 10 the city will engage business, academia, and provincial and national departments of environmental affairs.
This session has been reserved for the forging of partnerships with internal and external stakeholders to help the City deliver on its climate change action plan.