Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink has expressed gratitude to C40 Cities for backing the capital city’s implementation of the climate action plan over the past years.
This was during a C40 Cities political leadership masterclass on climate change governance held Tshwane House at this week. Leaders and delegates from 12 African cities attended the event.
The C40 Cities climate leadership group is a network of nearly 100 mayors of the world's leading cities.
Brink highlighted some of the sustainability projects implemented over the years, which include the running of a carbon offset programme #Arejwaleng, which means “Let us plant”, and planting 300 000 trees over the next three years.
The metro, he said, attained the 5-star green building rating for Tshwane House, the municipal headquarters.
Other projects included investing in 10 electric vehicles used for our messenger services and installing the first-ever photovoltaic panels on a municipality-owned building in Tshwane.
The city also launched the first 40 South African public transport buses to run on compressed natural gas.
Brink announced the roll-out of the climate budget initiative in partnership with C40 Cities.
“The city has been steadily working at the inclusion of climate considerations into our capital planning system and now we will take this work to the next level by linking our emissions-reduction targets to actual projects and ensuring that these are prioritised and form part of what will be known as the Tshwane climate budget,” he said.
The initiative, he said, was the only sure way of ensuring that the city could “achieve the noble targets embedded in our climate action plan and form part and parcel of our planning and budgeting system”.
“In my view, strong political will is vital for meaningful reform and to drive investment into renewable energy, public transport and waste infrastructure. In the city, we have ensured that climate considerations are incorporated into every possible policy, strategy and plan, down to the level of individual capital projects. In terms of our climate action plan, the city’s administration is bound to always consider the climate in its planning.”
Pretoria News