Cabinet is in the process of approving the Just Transition Framework for publication, and 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 executive director Crispian Olver says 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 has also consulted with international experts on developing and using CRDP approaches.

CRDP approach 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 approach 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 damage 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 damage 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 due to climate change and negative health and livelihood impacts.

She explains that even though African countries are among those with the least contribution to greenhouse-gas emissions globally, there are already widespread losses and damage being experienced across the continent due 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

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