The City of Cape Town and the C40 City Finance Facility (CFF) recently signed a memorandum of understanding, which signals the start of processes for the city to receive technical assistance to explore two projects.

The first is aimed at developing climate change adaptation projects into bankable investment proposals and the other at developing plans to achieve a carbon neutral city by 2050.

The CFF assists cities by providing technical assistance to develop climate change mitigation and adaptation projects into bankable investment proposals.

In April 2021, the CFF embarked on its third phase of calling on cities to apply to access the technical assistance it offers. More than 60 cities around the world applied, and Cape Town was the only city that was successfully awarded assistance for two projects.

This initiative is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the UK government and the Agence Française de Development (AFD), and is implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), together with the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.

The agreements between the CFF and the City of Cape Town have recently been finalised, and the projects will now begin and be carried out over a period of about two years.

PROJECT ONE

The city will be receiving a donation of technical assistance to the value of about R10-million from CFF to support its Liveable Urban Waterway and Green Infrastructure Programmes.

The programmes are led by the Water and Sanitation and Spatial Planning and Environment Directorates respectively and are implemented in collaboration with various other city directorates.

A number of waterway rehabilitation projects have started in the Sand river catchment and the city aims to learn from these and to scale this out to other waterways and catchments.

The technical assistance project will develop a business case and masterplan for implementing nature-based solutions, green infrastructure and waterway rehabilitation projects in two additional catchments (Diep River South and Zeekoe), and will explore how working with nature and communities can contribute to climate adaptation, as well as unlocking many other co-benefits.

The technical assistance will also include the appointment of a senior project adviser, who will work closely with the project team.

PROJECT TWO

The second project is being implemented by the city’s Energy Directorate and will assist in further developing plans to achieve a carbon neutral city by 2050 and derive the multiple financial, economic, social and environmental benefits thereof.

At least 30 MW of renewable generation capacity needs to be developed with a minimum 18% reduction in energy use (from a 2020 baseline) by 2030 in order for the city’s building portfolio to be carbon neutral.

To achieve this, the city is pursuing an energy efficiency programme as well as renewable energy generation through rooftop and ground-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV).

The proposed renewable energy generation project aims to design, build, operate and maintain a utility-scale ground-mounted solar PV generation plant on a site under investigation in Paardevlei outside Somerset West.

The technical assistance, provided by the CFF, will include the appointment of a senior project adviser to support the project team and its efforts to undertake a technical feasibility study and capacity strengthening in the fields of project development and the structuring of solar PV projects.