Climate Finance for a Green Economy

By Monica Graaff

There are an increasing number of global climate funds available to invest in climate change mitigation projects and kick-start a green economy, but accessing these funds is not as simple as it might seem, according to speakers at a Cambridge Resilience Forum event in Cape Town this week.
 
The funds range from the $30 billion committed to climate friendly development at the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Copenhagen conference last year to private equity funds. But, according to Smita Nakhooda of the World Resources Institute based in Washington DC, many tensions exist as to how these funds should be sourced, committed and managed.
 
“At the heart of the debate is how to maintain high standards of financing, while ensuring that funding institutions are nimble enough to ensure that things get done,” she said. “And how do you ensure that the finance reaches the kind of projects that will have traction and bring about major change?”
 
Nakhooda said one of the major tensions was that developing nations wanted to have direct access to funding and many donors felt safest working through the tested international bodies such as the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Advances in meeting this challenge of ‘top-down versus bottom-up’ had been made with the introduction of the Adaptation Fund and the growth of national low carbon development funds, but it was too early to judge how these would fare.
 
Richard Sherman of One World Sustainable Investments and a member of the South African delegation to the UNFCCC said that the Copenhagen Accord included an agreement to set up a new fund that was currently being negotiated. Debated issues were over global technology intellectual property rights, insurance mechanisms, whether to make grants or loans, and what the sources of funding should be.
 
A possible source for this new fund could be using 1% of GDP from developed countries, but then the question would be how the UN Secretary General would decide to mobilize these funds, he said.
 
Funds could also possibly be sourced from the private sector via climate transactions taxation, leveraging emissions of the transport industry, and implementing George Soros’s proposal of an IMF rights issue.
 
However, the good news, he said, was that the $30 billion committed at Copenhagen would flow through existing channels, and would therefore not be hampered by this process of negotiation.
 
The important thing for South Africa to remember was that it needed to ensure that it had established the right channels to receive these funds so that it would be ready to receive them, he said. Work still had to be done in this area.
 
Carl Wesselink of the South African Export Development Fund called for a pragmatic approach to accessing climate-related funds and putting them to good social and economic use. The point was not to focus on becoming ‘carbon neutral’ (which usually had “zero social impact” and had a “negative impact on the country’s Balance of Payments”) but rather to focus on “how we get energy and how we use it”.
 
“Our decisions need to be practical and socially responsible,” he said.
 
Best known for the role he played in implementing South Africa’s acclaimed flagship Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) housing retrofit project at Kuyasa in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, he said it would cost R1500 per unit over five years to retrofit an RDP house with a ceiling and a solar water geyser.
 
“This might not sound like a lot to us, but we need to understand the social and economic benefits from these simple interventions for the people who live in RDP houses. It means the inhabitants regain about 10% of their income in energy saving, get access to hot water for the first time, and avoid having to endure about 3 litres of condensation a night dampening their beds and affecting their health,” he said.
 
While the CDM was a useful mechanism, it was laden with bureaucratic processes that used up about 75% of the funds available, he said. Accessing funds from local funding institutions, such as the National Sustainable Settlements Facility, should not be ruled out as an interim measure to get things going.
 
Graham Sinclair, principal at Sinclair & Company, a boutique investment advisory firm specializing in sustainable investment in emerging markets, said private investment offered a possible source of climate finance.
 
“Investors are geared up to make investment decisions along ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) principles if people insist on them. The more investors ask for this kind of investment, the more the market will work in this direction,” he said.
 
But the bottom line for private funding, all agreed, was that the market required a reasonable degree of certainty that investment will be profitable.
 
As Nakhooda pointed out in her opening remarks, it is cheaper to mitigate the effects of climate change through climate friendly investments than to deal with post-event adaptation. Mitigation offers an opportunity for profiting from the development of a green economy. Adaptation is more likely to be expensive damage control.
 
Dirk Visser of the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, who chaired the session, noted that, according to the World Bank, $50 billion was needed annually for Africa to cope with climate change. According to some, this figure is severely underestimated.
 
Monica Graaff is a freelance journalist who works on projects with the University of Cambridge’s Programme for Sustainability Leadership.

Launch of ‘Ubuntu: South Africa’s search for a sustainable future’

CPSL South Africa, in association with the Forum for the Future’s Green Futures publication and the British High Commission, will on the 19th November launch Ubuntu: South Africa’s search for a sustainable future.

Ubuntu is a once-off supplement to the bi-monthly “Green Futures”, the UK’s leading corporate sustainability magazine. It will be distributed internationally and through the Financial Mail’s 20th November issue  in South Africa. It looks at the political and economic hurdles South Africa faces as we square up to the accelerating impacts of climate change and the challenges of energy supply, water scarcity, food security, housing, transport and the 2010 World Cup.

Leading South African sustainability experts have been commissioned to write about these topics and the result reflects top-level analysis and opinion. In addition to reflecting on the challenges the country faces, pioneering examples of emerging sustainability practices in South Africa are showcased.

Ubuntu is edited in South Africa by Monica Graaff, the 2008 Environmental Journalist of the Year and former editor of the award-winning sustainable business magazine, Mind Shift.

The Risks from Sea Level Rise – assessments from Australia & Cape Town

Reuters reported today on an Australian parliamentary committee’s finding that $137bn worth of property in this island continent was at risk from rising sea levels and more frequent storms. 80 percent of Australia’s 21 million people live on the coast and authorities are split on whether to adopt a policy of retreat or defence against rising seas.

The social and economic impact of sea level rise was the topic at our recent Cambridge Resilience Forum session (get the podcast here). A 2008 risk assessment done for the City of Cape Town concluded that within the next 25 years there is an 85% probability of 60,9km2 (2% of the Metro area) being covered by sea for a short period, with an accompanying expected loss of real estate value estimated at just under R20bn. As Prof Geoff Brundrit explained, these estimates are predicated on only a 15 centimeters rise in the sea level. Even such a relatively small rise changes the frequency and intensity of extreme storm events and this causes the damage. A more dramatic sea level rise, when the polar ice caps melt for example, causing coastal areas to be underwater permanently, is not even included in current estimates for the next 30-50 years.

Gregg Oelofse of the City of Cape Town elucidated some of the challenges for government. The possible mitigation strategy of building more storm walls and barriers can actually increase the impact of storm events. The Cape Town study done in 2008 was one of the first in the world and has placed the City on the forefront of planning and thinking about these issues.

Similar to the Australian report, the Forum session also highlighted the importance and complexity of legal liability and insurance cover related to climate change and sea level rise. At the Cape Town event Herman de Meyer, underwriting specialist of Santam, emphasised that insurers need to collaborate with scientists and policy makers to better understand these risks.

The 16 October edition of Engineering News carried an article on the sea level rise Forum session. Read the online article here…

Forum online booking launched

We are very excited to announce that the online booking system for the Cambridge Resilience Forum has now been launched at www.cpsl.co.za/forum/register/ People can now register as members, book for events and pay online.

The very secure online payment system caters for Visa and Mastercard credit cards, but there is also the option to pay via Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT).

We trust that this new system will contribute to the Forum’s objective of offering convenient, flexible  and cost effective opportunities for continuing professional development.

The launch of the online booking system comes as we announce the double treat in November with two exciting sessions each in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Podcast: Forum Biomimicy event

The Cambridge Resilience Forum event on Biomimicry, featuring Megan Schuknecht & Bryony Schwan, held in Johannesburg on the 9th of September is available as a podcast on Radio Today’s website. Click here to go the podcast and then select Play to listen or Download to download to your PC /Mac.

Radio Today is available on 1485 AM in the greater Johannesburg area or nationally on DStv audio channel 169 and this insert was aired on 21 September.

The R20bn risk – discussion on impacts of Sea Level Rise

As part of the Cambridge Resilience Forum, we present a Forum Discussion on:

The Financial and Human Impact of Sea Level Rise
Wednesday 30 September 2009
17:30 – 19:30
Townhouse Hotel, 60 Corporation Street, Cape Town

Some climate scientists believe that we may have underestimated the tempo of sea level rise. Sea level rise could have a severe human and financial impact on low-lying coastal areas. What is the latest scientific evidence indicating? How will sea level rise impact property investment and insurance? How are we going to deal with disaster impact and the mass resettlement of people?

These are just some of the questions that will be discussed by our expert panel consisting of:

• Prof Geoff Brundrit – Special Advisor on Oceans and Climate Change, National Department of Environmental Affairs
• Anton Cartwright - Economist, Stockholm Environmental Institute
• Rian Mouton – Santam Facultative Reinsurance
• Gregg Oelofse – Environmental Resource Management, City of Cape Town

A 2008 sea-level rise risk assessment done on behalf of the City of Cape Town concluded that within the next 25 years there is a 85% probability of 60,9km2 (2% of Metro area) being covered by sea for a short period. The accompanying expected loss of real estate value is just under R20bn.

The report concludes:
“The sovereign risk of sea-level rise for the City of Cape Town is significant and will increase in the next 25 years regardless of reductions in greenhouse gas”.

This importance of gaining understanding on sea level rise therefore cannot be over emphasized. Come and join us to learn, with other professionals, about this topic.

Non Forum members pay R230 to attend, but why not join the Forum and get great discount on a year’s seminars?

For more information and to book your seat, please contact Magda de Kok on magda.dekok@cpsl.cam.ac.uk

Toddlers with matchboxes

By Monica Graaff

Ever since we discovered how to use fire, we humans have been like “toddlers with matchboxes” – and dangerously so.

So said science writer and lecturer Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: innovation inspired by nature (first published in 1997). She was talking at the inaugural lecture of the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership’s Resilience Forum in Cape Town on 27 August 2009.

Her fondly delivered description of our “relatively new species” conjures up a vivid image of how we humans have become too smart and successful for our own good. So smart and populous in fact, that our beloved “heat, beat and treat” approach to almost everything could threaten our very own survival.

The problem with our approach to solving problems is that it usually causes a host of other problems in its wake – problems that in turn need solving. Human induced climate change is an obvious example.

Read more

Editors Briefing on Climate Change

The media’s power to shape the way a nation thinks about and plans for its future is hard to overestimate. The particular complexity of climate change makes it critically important that editors and journalists understand the issue and its implications well enough to be able to communicate its importance to the public.

With this in mind we worked with an outstanding team of independent people and organizations in the sustainability field (see below) to create a one-day Editors’ Briefing on Climate Change on 6th August in Johannesburg. The Danish Embassy generously funded the event as part of their preparations for hosting the UN negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

Despite warnings from all sides that our target audience of editors and business / political journalists were notoriously hard to lure to such events and the subject matter was likely to interest only environmental journalists, we ended up with 21 of the ‘right’ kind of journalists and editors in the room (see below), with some 8 others telling us they would have come had they not been held back at the eleventh hour by some circumstance or other. All of them gave us very positive feedback on the usefulness of the day.

The Contributors
We had an exceptionally strong and willing roster of speakers (see below), including the UK Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change (Ed Miliband) and the Chairman of Shell UK (James Smith – by video link).

We are now actively looking at how we can expand this format to reach a much wider cross-section of the South African media.

If you have any questions or ideas, please contact Magda de Kok at magda.dekok@cpl.cam.ac.uk or 021 4694765.

****

Additional reporting on this event

• David Le Page’s blog
• Business Day
• Polity
• Weekend Post

Programme Team

• Monica Graaff – Associate, Incite Sustainability
• Felicity Harrison – Project Director, Goedgedacht Forum for Social Reflection
• Leonie Joubert – Freelance science journalist
• David Le Page – Freelance journalist
• Branda Martin – Project Manager, Project 90 by 2030
• Peter Willis – South African Director, Cambridge Programme for Sustainability
• Mada de Kok – Senior Project Manager, Cambridge Programme for Sustainability

Contributors

• Tasneem Essop – World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
• Karin Ireton – Director of Group Sustainability Management, Standard Bank
• Jorn Hammer – Vestas
• Dr Guy Midgley – South African National Biodiversity Institute & IPCC co-author
• Ed Miliband – UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
• Pancho Ndebele – Founder, Emvelo
• Mandy Rambharos – Climate Change and Sustainability Manager, Eskom
• Stefan Raubenheimer – CEO SouthSouthNorth & Senior Associate, Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership
• Dr Bob Scholes – CSIR & IPCC co-author
• James Smith – Chairman, Shell UK
• Richard Worthington – World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)

Delegates

• Quintin Wray – Editor, Business Report
• Barney Mthombothi – Editor, Financial Mail
• Ryk van Niekerk – Editor, Sake24
• Peter Bruce – Editor, Business Day
• Henry Jeffreys – Editor, Die Burger
• Moshongwa Matsena – Senior Editor Current Affairs, Channels Africa
• Marlene van Rooyen – Editor, 25 Degrees in Africa
• Peter Fabricius – Foreign Editor, The Independent Group
• Gavin Stewart – Editorial Consultant, Daily Dispatch
• Stephen Mulholland – Columnist, FinWeek
• Christy van der Merwe – Contributing Editor Online, Engineering News
• Francois Williams – Western Cape Editor, Sake24
• Chantelle Benjamin – Chief Reporter / Associate Editor, Business Day
• Nia McGregor – Bureau Chief, Femina Magazine
• Siseko Njobeni – Energy Editor, Business Day
• Jill de Villiers – Head of Programming, CNBC Africa
• Leigh Roberts – Anchor, CNBC Africa
• Sherilee Bridge – Financial & Commodities Journalist, I-Net Bridge
• Guy Rogers – Environment & Tourism Editor, Herald
• Tony Carnie – Environment Reporter, The Mercury
• Melanie-Anne Feris – Environment Reporter, CityPress
• Rest Kanju – Regional Programme Coordinator, Indigenous People, CBNRM and Climate Change for Southern Africa
• Amelia Genis – Senior Repoter, Landbou Weekblad
• Jorisna Bonthuys – Environmental Reporter, Die Burger
• Elise Templehoff – Environmental Reporter, Beeld
• Sharda Naidoo – Cover Editor, Financial Mail
• Peter Mashala – Journalist, Farmer’s Weekly

Biomimicry in engineering and building

Green buildings has a positive impact on a number of impacts besides water and electricity savings, says PD Naidoo & Associates Consulting Engineers in a recent Engineering News article.

“Green building is a broad name for efficiency across everything, not only buildings, and includes transport, structures, rail networks and waste disposal.”

This follows on statements in the same publication and in other reports that green buildings also improve the investment case for owners.

PD Naidoo & Associates continue that an increased understanding of the link between a building and its natural environment and the influences these have on each other has also led to new design approaches in construction.

The concept of biomimicry has increased in prevalence, they explain. Biomimicry involves the use of nature as inspiration for design concepts. Conventional examples of this are termite mounds, which run as efficient large-scale city-type habitations, and the invention of Velcro arising from observations of burrs on animal fur.

In the recent Brunel Lecture, Peter Head, director of ARUP, also referred to the 10 principles of Biomimicry as providing the solutions for sustainable design.

To learn a lot more about biomimicry, we invite you to attend one of the public lectures by Janine Benyus and some of the directors of the Biomimicry Institute. Get all the info here…

Janine Benyus recently spoke alongside former US president Bill Clinton and renowned business author Peter Senge at the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment Summit in Chicago.

Editor’s workshop on climate change

Climate Change: The biggest story ever?

A Workshop for South African Editors with Global and Local Experts
Park Hyatt Hotel, Rosebank, Thursday 6th August 2009

In Copenhagen in December the world will negotiate a new agreement on climate change and carbon emissions that will profoundly affect South Africa’s development in the next decades. What can we expect from this negotiation and what are its implications for South Africa’s economy in the years to come?

Up till now human-induced Climate Change has been regarded by most media and politicians as an ‘environmental’ issue. This view is fast becoming dangerously inaccurate. The growing involvement of all major governments and many of the world’s largest companies in finding ways to mitigate this turbulence indicates that Climate Change is now a central economic and social issue, capable of dramatically altering political and economic landscapes over the coming years.

What confronts South Africa? Who is doing what to develop a coherent response? And what might the media’s role be? These and other questions will be addressed during a workshop for editors and senior journalists hosted by Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL) on 6 August 2009.

The day features contributions by James Smith, Chairman of Shell UK, and a veritable line-up of local climate experts including three contributors to the 4th UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2007.

A further highlight of the day is a visit by British Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change, Mr. Ed Milliband.

The workshop is funded by the Danish government in support of its hosting the UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.

The day’s programme consist of two parts: A breakfast session with inputs from two leading voices on climate change and business; and small group discussions with local climate scientists, policy experts and business leaders facilitated by Peter Willis & Richard Calland.

For any further details, you can get in touch with Magda de Kok at magda.dekok@cpsl.cam.ac.uk or 021 469 4765.

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