ARTFUL STROKES Cape Town plays catch-up

CITY NEEDS THREE YEARS TO DEAL WITH DROUGHT IMPACT No use complaining about climate change, mayor De Lille tells conference.

It will take at least three years for the City of Cape Town to deal with the impact of climate change and the current drought on the city, Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille said yesterday.

Welcoming delegates to Adaptation Futures 2018, the world’s leading conference on climate change adaptation, taking place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, the mayor said the city had to learn many lessons when it came to climate change adaption.

The conference is being attended by more than 1 200 delegates from 87 countries and more than 230 organisations

“When we talk about climate change, what we have learned in the City of Cape Town is that what really matters and how you respond to climate change is the actions that you take.

“You have to walk, talk, it’s no use complaining about the impact of climate change but the action is needed foremost immediately,” she said.

“One thing that I can tell you that we have learned in terms of adaptation is that we had to reduce our water demand and usage.

“In January 2016, as a collective, the city used over 1.1 billion litres of water per day.

“In 2018, we have been able to bring down that consumption to just over 500 million litres of water per day.

“I believe that Cape Town will emerge as one of the most water resilient cities in the world because of how we had to adapt and how we also had to mitigate all of the challenges.”

De Lille said South Africa, in February, had launched a successful global water fund model, which sought to introduce a public-private partnership in innovation financing to conserve watersheds and also water resources in Africa.

“We are also very proud that in February this year, we have launched in South Africa the first water fund, in Cape Town.

“This fund project is on the successful global water fund model which seeks to introduce a public-private partnership in innovation financing to conserve watersheds and also water resources in Africa,” said De Lille.

The mayor also stressed the importance of conservation programmes in job creation.

“For the past 17 years, we had a water conservation programme, and through that programme, we created 1 000 jobs.

“We trained plumbers and let them loose in our communities to fix leaks and repair pipes.

“If we had not done that for the past 15 years, we would have actually found the drought far worse than it is now.

“In 2015 we received an international reward for our water conservation from the C40 cities,” said De Lille. – ANA

The fifth edition of the Adaptation Futures conference, taking place for the first time in Africa, is attended by more than 1 200 delegates from 87 countries and more than 230 organisations, ranging from world-renowned universities, city and regional governments to international funding bodies and NGOs.