Africa’s cities are the first responders in the face of the climate emergency and need to “act faster and quicker” to tackle it.
Zarina Moola, the head of the new C40 Cities Climate Action Implementation Africa programme, said this at its launch last week. C40 Cities is a global network of mayors taking urgent action to confront the climate crisis.
Funded by the UK government, the programme is supporting seven cities – Accra, Lagos, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg and Tshwane – in developing ambitious climate action implementation plans to help them become carbon neutral by 2050 and secure a greener future for their nearly 54 million residents.
The continent’s cities are booming, Moola said, but also face a lot of challenges.
“We have high population growth, in-migration from rural areas and that results in growing informality in cities,” she said.
Sixty percent of people in Africa’s cities live in overcrowded or informal settlements, Moola noted, adding: “African cities, on average, are 29% more expensive to live in than the global average. At the same time, we’re struggling with meeting the growing infrastructural demands and service delivery priorities that cities are commonly facing.”
Climate change is worsening these challenges, Moola said, pointing out how climate impacts are expected to be 1.5 times more severe on the continent than the global average, and up to six times worse in the region’s cities because of the urban heat island effect and poor infrastructure.
Despite being home to 17% of the world’s population, the continent contributes to only 3% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Most African C40 cities have per capita emissions that are below their fair share of the global carbon budget. However, this is projected to grow on the back of booming population, increased urbanisation, electrification, industrialisation and land-use change.
Sustainable waste management
The programme for the seven cities is focused on renewable energy/green buildings, sustainable waste management and climate mainstreaming. According to Moola, sustainable waste systems are a priority for African cities where the condition of municipal solid-waste infrastructure is critical. This is exacerbated by rapid urbanisation, population growth and rising informality.
Emissions from the waste sector are expected to rise by 30% by 2030. “Up to 60% of our waste in African cities is organic, which has a very high methane content,” she said. “Methane has a severe impact on the climate.”
Strong waste collection systems can create jobs, improve health and potentially minimise the impact of floods.
“In Lagos, we’re going to be working on developing an organic waste strategy, so trying to understand where the sources of waste are; where the biggest opportunities are
and think about how we move to diverting organic waste from landfill in its entirety.”
Johannesburg, Nairobi and Addis Ababa will look at diverting and treating organic waste in different forms.
“In Nairobi, we’re going to look at markets where you can get the biggest supply of clean organic waste and start with a pilot of diverting organic waste from the market but think of how we can scale this up across all the markets in Nairobi.”
Johannesburg is looking at garden waste and how it can be used to support anaerobic digestion, for example. “Addis Ababa is looking at innovative treatment methodologies for organic waste. In Dar es Salaam and Accra, they’re looking at community-scale organic waste treatment, and the household treatment of organic waste, and translating that into programmes where they can support composting and backyard gardening.”
Green energy, buildings
In cities, buildings are among the largest consumers of energy, globally accounting for half of greenhouse gas emissions, Moola explained. A warmer climate stresses energy systems, particularly the grid, while poor energy sources in informal settlements have severe health impacts.
Investments in the energy and buildings sector, she said, have great potential in creating green jobs, improving quality of life and promoting good health. Optimising energy use in buildings can deliver between 20% and 55% of cities’ emissions reduction potential.
“In terms of our priority energy actions in Addis Ababa and Accra, we’re going to be working on resilient and energy-efficient buildings … in different forms but looking at how we can improve the efficiency of buildings. Starting with efficiency is the first step to reducing emissions and to saving costs.
“In Johannesburg, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi and Lagos, we’re going to be looking at distributed renewables but at different scales. So, the City of Johannesburg is looking at informal settlements and powering them up with renewable energy and trying to think of a unique approach that doesn’t result in solar panels being damaged and ensuring that we are sustainable in the approach to action …
“In the City of Tshwane, we’re going to look at helping and supporting them with the large-scale procurement of renewable energy, looking at the independent power producer programme, and how we can enable and create a framework for them to procure renewable energy from independent power producers.”
Inclusive, climate-resilient, low-carbon
C40 cities in Africa have been working collectively to develop Climate Action Plans that are inclusive, climate resilient and low-carbon, said Hastings Chikoko, regional director for Africa at C40 Cities.
“This process alone illustrated a commitment from cities to act decisively on climate change, to mitigate as well as adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change, which have disproportionately affected developing countries,” Chikoko said.
Every effort, he added, must be made to reduce emissions. “Our African cities are not immune to these impacts as we see excessive and unpredictable rainfall patterns, which often lead to flooding in our cities. We see excessive urban heat, which affects human health. We see frequent and intense droughts, which impact our water sources, among many other impacts.”
These effects affect city functions and service delivery. “At the same time, cities are working to bounce back from the devastating impacts of Covid-19, linked to rising cost of living and deepening levels of poverty in Africa. This is why the climate action implementation Africa programme is both timely and fit for purpose.”
Chris Austin, the development director at the British High Commission in South Africa, said: “The UK government is delighted to partner with C40 and African cities on this multi-country programme, which is dedicated to advance climate action through state-of-the-art expertise, technical cooperation and knowledge exchange across continents. It is critical for urban actors in cities around the world to show collective leadership on climate change.”
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