Water, Sewage & Effluent July August 2018 | Page 25

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innovations
Water Sewage & Effluent July/August 2018
to keep the average increase in global temperature to well
below 2°C above pre-industrial levels; and to aim to limit the
increase to 1.5°C, as this would significantly reduce risks
and the impacts of climate change.
While each country controls, plans, and regularly reports
on its own contribution towards mitigating global warming,
there is no regulation to force a country to set a specific
target by a specific date. However, the one stipulation is that
each target should go beyond previously set targets. In this
light, South Africa is pushing towards ‘zero carbon’ building,
which in itself is an optimistic task, given that it is a developing
country, heavily dependent on fossil fuel to drive the wheels
of industry.
In the mix is the C40 Cities initiative where, around the
world, cities are taking bold climate action, leading the way
towards a healthier and more sustainable future.
In South Africa, four cities have collaborated to create zero-
carbon buildings that do not contribute to climate change by
substantially reducing their energy use. The goal is to push
for new buildings in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban,
and Tshwane (formerly Pretoria) to become increasingly
energy efficient by reducing electricity usage and reducing
greenhouse gas emissions.
Tim Pryce, interim programme director, Energy and
Buildings, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, said the
effort seeks to help South African cities rapidly scale up
low-carbon building efforts and share knowledge gained
with other cities, as buildings constitute the largest single
source of emissions in C40 cities globally, with over half of
the total emissions, he said.
“If we are to avoid hugely damaging impacts from climate
change — impacts that will make the current water shortage
in Cape Town look minor — we need to drive these emissions
down as rapidly as possible, towards net zero carbon all
around the world by 2050 at the latest,” Pryce told Thomson
Reuters Foundation.
While property development and nature might not be seen
to go hand in hand, increasingly, developers are moving
towards incorporating nature into building design, and
cities that achieve ‘net zero carbon’ would produce fewer
climate-changing emissions, with those still produced,
counterbalanced by means such as planting carbon-
absorbing trees.
Green spaces prove popular, even in major city centres
where they are seemingly rare. Rooftop gardens are on the
rise in central business districts such as Hong Kong, Tokyo,
Rotterdam, and New York. Likewise, urban farming initiatives
to boost food resources are fast becoming a global trend.
In South Africa, Johannesburg has gained recognition
as one of the world’s largest man-made urban forests —
boasting more than six million trees, while Cape Town’s CBD
is set to change with the arrival of its first environmentally
friendly mixed-use development: Harbour Arch. Perhaps
surprisingly, one of the most eye-catching features of this
5.8-hectare mixed-use precinct will be the complex’s green
rooftop towering over the city’s harbour.
Ensuring new buildings are highly efficient and run largely
on renewable energy is crucial to try to limit global warming
to relatively safe levels, Pryce says.
C
limate change — whether man-made or not — is a
reality. Natural disasters are evidence of this and are
now an everyday occurrence as temperatures continue
to climb, turning once verdant areas into deserts while
floods wash away loose soil, deprived of vegetation to hold
it in place.
In this environment, the Paris Agreement, Paris climate
accord, or Paris climate agreement, was birthed within
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC). It deals with greenhouse gas emissions
mitigation, adaptation, and finance starting in 2020. The
agreement was adopted from consensus by 196 parties at
the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC in Paris,
on 12 December 2015.
As of June 2018, 195 UNFCCC members have signed the
agreement — the US withdrew in June 2017 — and 178
have become party to it. The Agreement’s long-term goal is