• Start year:
• Type: Public Participation/Stakeholder engagement
• Status:

Walking is the second most important main mode of transport in Johannesburg, after the car. It is
the mode used for 31% of all trips made in the morning peak period according to the 2003 GHTS
(car accounts for 37% and minibus-taxis for 23%). The average walk trip was 23 minutes (25
minutes for work trips and 22 minutes for walking to schools and other educational institutions).
The other Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) mode, cycling, accounts for 0,2% of trips (3 165 trips).
Average travel time spent cycling to work is 42 minutes and to education is 16 minutes. In addition,
walking is the most significant feeder mode for access to public transport (to railway stations, bus
stops and taxi ranks).
The majority – 90% – of the walkers and cyclists are “striders” – people who walk or cycle out of
choice. However, about 10% or 50 000 people are regarded as “stranded” in that they walk or cycle
for longer than 30 minutes because they cannot afford motorized transport.

• Start year:
• Type: Policy/Strategies/Action Plans
• Status: In operation

The City of Johannesburg has embarked upon journey to become a sustainable and smart City of the future in line with the principals of the Growth and Development Strategy 2040.
Energy will be a critical component in realising this aspiration. Whilst energy is key to unlocking the economic and socio-economic development objectives, unchecked consumption of coal-based power will increase carbon and energy intensity, threaten economic and environmental sustainability and the quality of living within the City.
The shareholder and the Board have mandated City Power to relook their business model and consider options with regard to a wider energy portfolio, particularly with regard to inclusion of renewables and gas. The plan to Inform the City to:
i. understand the future demand of the City in relation to its long term planning;
ii. understand global trends;
iii. understand the energy market, the opportunities and nature and size of investments required;
iv. appreciate the legal and regulatory constraints and requirements;
v. articulate optimal mix(es) of energy sources going forward;
vi. align with global and national goals on reduction of carbon emissions;
vii. create awareness of impact on and risks to existing and future business models;
viii. identify and articulate key uncertainties (policy, legislative, industry, environmental and political); and
ix. identify and document dependencies and integration watch points.

• Start year: 2010
• Type: Technical/Infrastructure investment
• Status: Completed

The objective of the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) Rea Vaya in Johannesburg, South Africa is to establish an efficient, safe, rapid, convenient, comfortable and effective modern mass transit system based on a BRT system. The situation before the project is around 1 million vehicles plying the streets of the City of Johannesburg comprising around 800,000 private cars, 40,000 motorcycles, 50,000 taxis and around 50,000 public transit mini-buses and buses. The baseline situation is that passengers would use conventional modes of transport including buses, minibus-taxis, cars, suburban train, motorcycles and Non-Motorized Transport thus causing baseline trip emissions in absence of the project. Project emissions are based on the actual fuel consumption of buses forming part of the project. Leakage emissions are caused by changes of congestion and speed resulting potentially in a rebound and a speed effect plus potential change of load factors of remaining buses and minibus-taxis in the city. Emission reductions are the result of reduced GHG (Greenhouse Gases) emissions per passenger trip comparing the baseline with the project situation.The BRT Rea Vaya is also earning voluntary carbon standard whilst reducing GHG emissions by improving the resource efficiency of transporting passengers.A crucial element of the Rea Vaya project is the reduction of Joburg’s public transport carbon footprint. The fleet for the first phase had Euro IV emission standards with particle filter while the second fleet meets Euro V standards. It is envisaged that the bus fleets for future phases will be powered by a combination of biogas and diesel. Presently Rea Vaya operates along about 54 km of trunk route servicing about 40 000 passengers per day with 277 buses. In addition to the trunk routes there are complementary and feeder routes which use smaller 75-seater buses. A third phase which will travel to the north of the City is under construction for operatinalisation in 2016.

• Start year: 2012
• Type: Technical/Infrastructure investment
• Status: In operation

Climate proofing involves promoting development that reduces
climate change risks. It involves rolling out low-pressure
solar water heater (SWH) units as well as installing insulated
Isoboard ceilings and distributing compact fluorescent
lamps (CFL) to 700 low-income households in Cosmo City.
This project is a continuation of a 2007 first phase installation
of 170 Solar Water Heaters (SWH). The solar water
heaters, CFLs and insulated ceilings will afford an estimated
savings of 58,641 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions
yearly.
Participating Organizations: Danish International Development
Agency (DANIDA)

• Start year: 2013
• Type: Assessment/Research
• Status: Completed

The city has embarked on a course to calculate its carbon footprint to understand the state of greenhouse gas emissions in the City.The inventory report provides an estimate of the City of Johannesburg’s greenhouse gas emissions. The work was undertaken by the City of Johannesburg and Siemens through the C40 Measurement & Planning initiative. The World Resources Institute (WRI), C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability have jointly developed an international greenhouse gas accounting standard for cities, called the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GPC). This was done in close consultation with local governments and the joint work programme of the Cities Alliance between World Bank, UNEP and UN-Habitat. The standard provides cutting-edge advice and support to local governments for a transparent, consistent and common approach to emissions measurement. This can enhance access of local governments to global climate funds. The GHG Protocol also offers the City of Joburg an internationally accepted management tool to help to compete globally and to make informed decisions about climate change mitigation actions.

• Start year: 2012
• Type: Regulatory
• Status: In operation

Implementation of Criteria for the assessment of land use applications in terms of energy efficiency/resource sustainability by the City of Johannesburg Department of Development Planning and Urban Management.

• Start year: 2014
• Type: Fiscal / Financial mechanism
• Status: In operation

Johannesburg has become the first city in South Africa and within its network of C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group to issue a green bond. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) is the largest on the African continent which has listed its first green bond for the City as a trading platform amongst the best and sophisticated worldwide. The $140 million bond issued by the City of Johannesburg will be used to fund green initiatives within South Africa's largest cities. In particular, the bond will be used as a funding source to improve and expedite the implementation of climate change mitigation strategies and adaptation investments while receiving a market related financial return; especially those that lead the city towards a low carbon economy.
One of the city council's green programmes include the installation of 43 000 solar water heaters by City Power (the municipal energy distributor) which will collectively save the equivalent of 22.5GW-hours of electricity per year, sufficient to power a small town. The issuance of this green bond will assist the City with a source of funding towards capital expenditure to expedite its environmental solutions. What distinguishes this green bond from any other general obligation bond is that the projects to be financed are green initiatives such as the Bio Gas to Energy Project and the Solar Geyser Initiative, as well as all other projects that reduce greenhouse emissions and contribute to a resilient and low carbon economy. The City together with its residents and stakeholders shaped a vision and plan for the future through the Growth and Development Strategy (GDS 2040), a policy instrument for the city which draws focus on four pillars; economic growth, sustainable services, human & social development as well as good governance. The objective is to drive a policy agenda which strive toward minimal resource reliance and increased preservation of natural resources. These pillars would ensure that the infrastructure development in the city will be focused on providing resilient, liveable and sustainable environment that is supporting of a low carbon economy that is able to continually change and adapt, yet remain within sustainable thresholds of existence, even when confronted with complexity and uncertainties.

• Start year: 2007
• Type: Technical/Infrastructure investment
• Status: In operation

Joburg has successfully implemented two landfill gas-to-energy projects. At the Robinson Deep landfill site and the Marie Louise project, landfill gas is extracted, combusted and flared as carbon dioxide, to generate electricity. Soon, a total of 19MW of electricity will be generated from 5 landfill sites, which could be used by about 12500 middle-income households. The Robinson Deep landfill was completed in May 2011. 68 gas wells were installed and will be increased during the second phase of the project. It has produced 137,888 Certified Emission Reductions (CER's) and destructed 18,288,457Nm3 of landfill gas, which would have otherwise been released into the atmosphere.The project is estimated to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by 362,016 tCO2e/year, on
average, over the first 7-year crediting period.

• Start year:
• Type: Assessment/Research
• Status: In operation

Development of a biodigester from fresh produce waste matter. Investigations were conducted on possibility of reducing waste from the market to destined to their landfill sites and therefore it was deemed that the efforts to develop a bio digester project should be harnessed.

• Start year:
• Type: Technical/Infrastructure investment
• Status: In operation

The City of Johannesburg intends to "green" its vehicle fleet. This entails converting the current fleet of vehicles into alternative, but green fuels.The target is to convert at least 50% of the current fleet into green fuels by 2018.

• Start year: 2011
• Type: Technical/Infrastructure investment
• Status:

HE Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) has completed the installation of solar-powered traffic lights at five critical intersections in the City. This is in a bid to ease traffic congestion during a power outage.The high-tech traffic lights have been placed at the corner of Loveday and Rissik streets, the Grayston on and off-ramps from the M1; the corner of Grayston and Rivonia roads and the corner William Nicol and Sloane streets.The solar-powered traffic lights were installed at an initial cost of R1,65-million.

• Start year: 2011
• Type: Technical/Infrastructure investment
• Status: Completed

Facing a steep increase in energy costs and the challenge to make water treatment activities more environmentally sustainable, Johannesburg Water is upgrading the sludge handling and digestion at Northern Waste Water Treatment plant, as part of the City’s current capital investment program. It was estimated that by 2012 the cost of electricity of waste water treatment in Joburg would have doubled the 2010 costs. Johannesburg Water treats 1 billion litres of sewage per day at its six waste water treatment works, with the potential to produce 8.5MW of electrical energy. Northern Waste Water Treatment Works near Diepsloot is the largest and treats about 430-million litres of sewage a day and the first water work to be upgraded. The City wished to offset increasing electricity costs for waste water treatment by generating its own electricity from treatment plants, with an aim for the waste water treatment works to be self-sufficient and more environmentally sustainable in the future. The current Combined Heat Power (CHP) units installed can fulfill approximately 14% of the plant electrical power requirement. Upon expansion of the biodigestion and CHP facilities this could be increased to more than 50%

• Start year: 2012
• Type: Policy/Strategies/Action Plans
• Status: Completed

As part of its broader strategy to transform the energy sector, the City of Johannesburg has identified the need for an Energy Demand Side Management (DSM) Policy. The Policy will guide energy DSM activities of within the municipal boundaries of the CoJ, covering the supply areas of both City Power and Eskom.This Policy document focuses on why the CoJ is embarking on Energy DSM, and broadly how the City plans to go about DSM. The Policy will be followed by an Implementation Plan that will provide greater detail with regard to what will be done, by when, and who will do it.

• Start year:
• Type: Assessment/Research
• Status: In operation

The City of Johannesburg is in the process updating the 2007 GHG emissions inventory baseline.

• Start year:
• Type: Policy/Strategies/Action Plans
• Status: In operation

To reduce man-made GHG emissions through promoting more sustainable activities and use of resources as well as enhancing resilience of communities and infrastructure to the impacts of climate change in the City;
To reduce GHG emissions via various mitigation measures while improving data collection for monitoring and reporting purposes;
To minimise exposure to risk and vulnerability of communities through informing future planning in terms of hot spots for flooding with the aim of protecting communities, properties, infrastructure from catastrophic impacts resulting from extreme weather events;
To enhance resilience of communities and infrastructure to heatwave events due to the anticipated warmer climate;
To understand the impacts of climate change in different sectors and to determine adaptation measures reducing impact;
To incorporate climate change into all future actions in the City especially service delivery and other developmental issues.

• Start year:
• Type: Policy/Strategies/Action Plans
• Status: In operation

Recent climate and weather patterns in Johannesburg and
elsewhere in South Africa show an increasing trend toward
flash floods. Floods cannot necessarily be prevented; however
long-term planning, medium-term interventions and
short-term emergency measures can reduce their impact
and devastating consequences. Short- to medium-term urban
management measures currently in progress include
physical infrastructure relocation or reconstruction (e.g. elevation,
flood wall erection, land-use regulation, flood-line
determination, stormwater master planning, stormwater
regulation, flood-prone area identification, specific hydraulic
assessments, public information management and training
programs, rapid communication systems, food supply, shelter
provision, medical care, debris management, financial assistance,
trauma counseling, etc.

• Start year: 2008
• Type: Assessment/Research
• Status: Completed

The City of Johannesburg has conducted a Climate Change Risk & Vulnerability Assessment in 2008 as a first step of identifying key vulnerable sectors and determining how significant the impacts of climate change will be on sector specific vulnerabilities in order to properly plan for adaptation. The analysis included, with respect to each planning area, an evaluation of the adaptive capacity, the ability to accommodate changes in climate with minimum disruption or minimum additional cost. This step concluded with an assessment of vulnerability, which combines the sensitivity and adaptability findings. Areas that are sensitive to climate change but less able to adapt were considered vulnerable.The purpose of commissioning of an assessment of Johannesburg’s vulnerability to climate change was to understand the current knowledge of global climate change, and localise this understanding; To assess the key vulnerable areas within the city, how they will be affected, and how the projected impacts can be mitigated; To Provide options for future opportunities to improve the perceptions around climate change and
explore future avenues of chage.The scaled down rainfall and temperature extremes for Johannesburg was used to understand the current climate and thus the change that is likely to take place in the next 40 to 60 years’ time, and longer. Due to the uncertainties associated with modelling climate, a number of models were used to
obtain a range of results. No one model is deemed more correct than the other as they are merely representations of the natural environment. A storyline of “business as usual” was adapted in order to obtain scenarios of future population growth, emissions and economy growth. The models differ with respect to the magnitude of change, however, there is a general consensus amongst them that Johannesburg will experience increase in minimum and maximum temperatures throughout the year. In addition, rainfall will also increase. What is not known of the increase in rainfall is whether it will be as a result of an increase in intense short duration rain (leading to
dangerous situations such as flash floods) or an increase in the number of rainfall events. The models are also unable at present to project any extreme weather occurrences such as droughts or floods. Nevertheless, significant action can be implemented on the basis of the current results in key sectors.

• Start year: 2008
• Type: Policy/Strategies/Action Plans
• Status:

"The third step was to assess potential adaptation mechanisms that could be implemented to reduce the impacts. The idea was to develop a comprehensive Climate Change Adaption Plan which explored indicators on how climate change may affect sustainable development within the City.The Adaptation Plan builds upon a completed risk & vulnerability assessment and provides an understanding of challenges and opportunities facing sectors in increasing adaptive capacity.It Identified priorities for medium and long-term research within and across sectors within the provincial economy.Climatic model projections were done for CoJ and indicate that the local climate is likely to become both significantly hotter and more humid in future.The models indicate significant increases in temperatures over the next four to five decades, with this trend continuing into the subsequent century. The warming trend will have a significant impact on average seasonal temperatures. The average of the seven climate model projections indicates an annualised temperature increase in the order of 2.4°C by the “near future” and 4.5°C further into the future. Largest increases are expected to occur in spring: an increase of 5°C and 5.2°C in average maximum day-time minimum night-time temperatures respectively by 2081-2100.There is also a substantial risk that the CoJ will experience an increase in annual rainfall which is characterised by a higher frequency of storm events and a longer rainy season. This would potentially be accompanied by a lengthening of the rainy season, particularly into early autumn and potentially starting earlier in spring as well, and an increase in both the frequency and intensity of rainfall. The averaged precipitation projections for the seven climate models shows an 18% increase in annual rainfall by mid-century, with a slightly larger increase of 27% projected for the period 2081-2100. These percentages are not intended to be presented as firm predictions of future rainfall.

• Start year:
• Type: Assessment/Research
• Status: Completed

Development of a Flood-Prone Areas study aimed at identifying possible strategies to prevent flooding in communities. The purpose was to carry out the floodline study for Klip River, Klipspruit and their tributaries in the Soweto Townships and surrounding areas to improve knowledge of the past and present climate variability and change, including the natural variability with regards to the severe thunderstorms experienced during the rainfall season; toimprove understanding and classification of the forces causing changes in the COJ climate and related systems; and to reduce uncertainty in projections of how extreme rainfall events may change in the future.

• Start year:
• Type: Policy/Strategies/Action Plans
• Status:

The City of Johannesburg participates in the World Disaster
Reduction Campaign originally launched by the United Nations
International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR),
which seeks to persuade mayors, local governments and national
authorities to take actions that make cities resilient, as
part of sustainable urbanization. The City of Johannesburg
showcases the following key elements:
• Risk reduction organization and coordination in place
• Vulnerability and risk assessment in place
• Investment in risk reducing infrastructure
• Safe schools and health facilities
• Risk-compliant building regulation and land use applied
• Education programs and training in place
• Ecosystems and natural buffers protected
• Early warning systems and emergency management capacity

• Start year: 2000
• Type: Technical/Infrastructure investment
• Status: In operation

A key issue highlighted in this study is that much of the CoJ’s climate change-related vulnerability stems from the fact that several of the systems considered most likely to be impacted upon by climate change are already severely stressed under existing climatic conditions. This is particularly true for the CoJ’s stormwater infrastructure – of the ten Action Level A rated risks; four are related directly to the threat of an increase in urban flooding. It is the existing strain on the stormwater infrastructure that potentially gives rise to the greatest cause for concern. A wide range of adaptations have been developed for each of the Action Level A-rated risks and with consideration to the specific needs, constraints and requirements of the CoJ. Of critical importance in the short-term is the development of an Early-Warning System that will be used to prevent loss of life and property during extreme flooding events. Whereas there is no empirical evidence to determine a direct relationship between heat waves and loss of life in the COJ, this area however is of critical importance given the projected increase in maximum temperatures. It is important for the COJ to develop a heat wave response plan. In addition to these risk specific adaptations, a number of strategic-level adaptations have also been identified which have the potential to address a broad number of risks across multiple sectors.

• Start year: 2012
• Type: Organizational / Governance
• Status: Completed

The City of Johannesburg hosted the fifth biennial C40 Mayors Summit, an event which gathers mayors from the world’s largest cities for three days to advance urban solutions to the climate crisis.At the Summit, C40 Cities released Climate Action in Megacities 2.0, a landmark research report that demonstrates a clear trend of megacities expanding and accelerating their climate actions. Climate actions – like implementing energy efficiency standards for buildings or adding bus rapid transit lanes – aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve urban resilience to climate change.