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Commission unpacks the ‘integrated systems’ approach taken with Just Transition Framework

15th August 2022

By: Marleny Arnoldi

Deputy Editor Online

     

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As Cabinet is busy approving the Just Transition Framework for publication, the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) has unpacked a key part of what the framework will be premised on – Climate Resilience Development Pathways (CRDPs).

PCC commissioner Makoma Lekalakala says South Africa’s Just Transition can only be realised if CRDPs are at its core, while PCC secretariat Crispian Olver states the CRDP approach is vital for implementing the Just Transition Framework.

The PCC was tasked to design a Just Transition Framework for South Africa, as a first building block towards realising a coordinated and coherent approach to just transition planning in South Africa.

Olver says CRDPs, in the South African government’s view, involve a deeply consultative process, particularly with people who have the most to lose in an energy transition, including workers in the coal value chain, women and the poorest of the poor.

The PCC has since its establishment as an advisory body to government in December 2020 embarked on pilot projects in Saldanha Bay and eThekwini to understand and determine ways of making the energy transition equitable, while ensuring a climate-resilient future.

The commission has looked at other pathway frameworks and international applications as a starting point for its work, and assessed the capacities needed to this end in South Africa. It also consulted with international experts developing and using CRDP approaches.

CRDP is focused on enabling decision-makers to systemically take into account the projected impacts of climate change on strategic infrastructure development, planning and management, alongside other traditional development criteria. It helps to manage the trade-offs between multiple sectors involved in a particular project and selects the most climate-resilient development method.

The PCC will further draft proposals for taking this work forward into various operating spaces.

University of Cape Town African Climate and Development Institute research fellow Anna Taylor explains that the CRDP follows an integrated consideration of the various systems that make up the country and the various outcomes that are dependent on the decisions made today.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deems these systems to be land, ocean, coastal and freshwater ecosystems; urban, rural and infrastructure; energy; industry; and society. South Africa has taken a similar view.

The IPCC regularly investigates the conceptual and empirical advances being made on CRDPs.

IPCC co-chairperson and South African climate scientist Debra Roberts says limiting global warming to 1.5 ˚C above preindustrial levels is expected to substantially reduce damages to African economies and ecosystems.

She believes that governance for climate resilient development includes long-term planning, all-of-government approaches, transboundary cooperation and benefit-sharing, development pathways that increase adaptation and mitigation, and Nationally Determined Contribution implementation.

“Ecosystem-based adaptation in African cities has huge potential, particularly in fast-growing small- and medium-sized cities. This type of holistic thinking is centred on equity and justice, and avoids quick fixes without deeper reflection on nature or societal needs,” she states.

She adds that cross-sectoral or “nexus” approaches, as encompassed in CRDPs, such as water-energy-food or climate-ecosystems-human health can deliver multiple benefits and avoid maladaptation to climate change.

Roberts says that, while limiting climate damages may not do much to realise economic growth in every region, it will ensure that fewer millions of people in Africa are pushed into extreme poverty owing to climate change and negative health and livelihood impacts.

She explains that even though African countries are among those that contribute least to greenhouse-gas emissions globally, there are already widespread losses and damages being experienced across the continent owing to climate change – in the form of biodiversity loss, water shortages, reduced food production, flash flooding and drought.

Meanwhile, Taylor suggests that practical interventions as part of a CRDP can include investing in green hydrogen infrastructure to power manufacturing of iron and steel for export and building South African infrastructure, or supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises in aquaculture with subsidies and marine protection.

She believes there to be many opportunities to enforce land use restrictions and create ecosystem-based employment in biodiversity adaptation corridors, aquifer protection zones and high flood-risk zones, including to clear solid waste and invasive plants along rivers and revegetating banks and dunes – which all contribute to longer term climate resilience.

To summarise, Taylor explains that CRDPs ultimately consider what are the best decisions – and tweaks to existing systems – to ensure a more beneficial outcome for all elements in a system, even if it involves sacrificing certain elements of life as we knew it for the greater good, be it to no longer live in certain areas or to find new ways of operating.

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online

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