Major accolades for Jozi’s climate change initiatives

15-03-2015

 

Johannesburg Member of the Mayoral Committee for Environment and Infrastructure Services Councillor Matshidiso Mfikoe was on Friday presented with a C40 Cities’ commemorative booklet in recognition of the City’s “well-rounded and quality” carbon disclosure project (CDP) and reporting.
 

The commemorative booklet was handed to MMC Mfikoe by C40 Cities’ Africa Regional Director, Hastings Chikoko, on the last day of a four-day workshop held at the Parktonian Hotel in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, last week.

The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group is an international network of megacities founded in 2005 to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
 

Last week’s workshop in Johannesburg was aimed at sharing lessons and exchanging knowledge on critical environmental issues, as well as to empower participants with a standardised accounting or reporting methodology of greenhouse gas emissions.
 

The workshop attracted delegates from eight African C40 member cities, half of which were South African.  The cities were Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Lagos, Cape Town, eThekwini and Tshwane.

In her acceptance speech, MMC Mfikoe said Johannesburg had made a number of commitments to the Global Protocol for Communities (GPC) towards the end of 2013.
 

“Our first inventory was completed just in time for the C40 Mayoral Summit of Climate Change that took place here in Johannesburg in February 2014,” she said.

The MMC acknowledged that the City’s commitment to dealing with climate change was increasingly receiving global recognition. 
 

“Recently, Johannesburg was, together with nine other cities – five of which are C40 members – featured in the In Focus Reports based on the city’s ‘highest quality’ CDP submissions. The In Focus Reports are a remarkable demonstration of the strides taken by cities such as Johannesburg in their quest to achieve sustainability and resilience,” she said.
 

Tiaan Ehlers, the City’s Executive Director for Environment and Infrastructure Services, said it was the City’s objective to build capacity in all the relevant sectors so climate change and emissions measurement were “properly institutionalised”.

“This will include creating a better understanding of the value of measurement and reporting, identifying and developing quality data sets and using the reported information for better climate action planning,” he said.
 

He added that addressing climate change was a key consideration for the City and was in line with the Growth and Development 2040 (GDS 2040) strategy, which seeks to attain a low carbon economy.

Chikoko said cities in Africa recognised that proper emissions measurement and reporting helped in understanding the impact of climate actions they were taking in various sectors. “This informs the planning and development of further policies and actions required to contribute to closing the emissions gap in line with both the city and national targets. 
 

“Accessibility of information on emissions also helps African cities to benchmark with other reporting cities worldwide. C40 cities have, therefore, pledged to accelerate the exchange of experiences and best practices on greenhouse gas emissions measurement and reporting,” he said.