Cape Town Mayor, Patricia De Lille announced on Sunday that Cape Town has reduced its energy-related carbon emissions by 4.1 percent between 2012 and 2015, as part of the city’s latest State of the Environment Report.
De Lille says less carbon dioxide has been released into the atmosphere, thus reducing “our impact on global warming”.
“This achievement is a testament to the City’s efforts to be a leader among a network of global cities (the C40 Cities initiative) that is increasingly taking action to reduce their CO2 emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change.”
“Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the world and cities as the drivers of change is the key to tackling this global phenomenon to protect the wellbeing of our citizens and our environment.”
She said, as a member of the C40 Cities, Cape Town is committed to meeting the goals set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
In 2017, Cape Town was ranked among the top five cities in the world out of 533 cities evaluated for demonstrating leadership in our climate disclosure.
“Through this disclosure, we measure our energy and climate action data annually and report the findings to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). Other cities in the top five include Mexico City, Paris, Sydney, and Vancouver.” De Lille added
According to De Lille, the city’s reduction of carbon emissions is largely due to a significant reduction in electricity consumption.
The City of Cape Town says, despite constraints, the City has implemented a small-scale embedded generation programme to allow residents and businesses to feed power generated from solar panels into the electricity grid.
Cape Town has a target to achieve a 37% reduction in carbon emissions by 2040 or a 13% reduction by 2022, as set out by the City’s Energy2040 goal.
“Together with residents and the private sector, we must now push harder to reduce our carbon emissions and amplify our contributions to protect the planet for future generations”, De Lille concluded.
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