Mail & Guardian reporter
If Potchefstroom joins the recent trend of renaming cities, perhaps the most appropriate name will be the “clean-up” city of South Africa.
The Potchefstroom City Council recently signed a memorandum of agreement with the International Council for Local Environment Initiatives (ICLEI), allowing the city a position in the ICLEI’s coveted Cities for Climate Change Programme (CCP).
The CCP aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency. Eight South African cities are voluntarily involved in the three-year programme, with the hope that it will spread to other cities throughout the country.
Of the eight local cities that are involved Sol Plaatje (formerly Kimberley), Saldanha Bay, Buffalo City (formerly East London), Ethekwini (formerly Durban), Johannesburg, Tshwane (formerly Pretoria) and Cape Town Potchefstroom has been elected as a showcase city for its CCP development programme and strategy for the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Areas where Potchefstroom is working to reduce greenhouse emissions and improve energy efficiencies include reducing electricity consumption at its airport and by street lights; methane recovery from the sewerage works; tree planting; and ensuring that all new municipality buildings are energy efficient.
The Centre for Environmental Management at Potchefstroom University is providing technical assistance to implement this programme.
Says Potchefstroom executive mayor Satish Roopa : “By joining the international CCP programme ,the city administration demonstrates that it actively reduces the ecological footprint of its activities as far as greenhouse gas emissions are concerned.
“By improving the environmental quality in the city, I believe, the preferred type of investors will recognise Potchefstroom’s environmental competitive advantage when investment decisions are to be made.”
The CCP project, taking place simultaneously in many cities throughout the world, was initiated by ICLEI, a global NGO based in Canada. The South African ICLEI programme is funded by USAid.
Established at the Congress of Cities for a Sustainable Future held at the United Nations in 1990, ICLEI is the international environmental agency of local governments. It supports local governments’ management capacity through training, technical assistance, and information resources and exchange.
Municipalities choose which actions they want to take, for example, tackling transport congestion, air quality and sustainable development. To assist cities in meeting their obligations, ICLEI is providing $59 000 for metros and $52 000 for other municipalities.