Guidance for Putting Climate-Resilient Development Pathways Into Practice: Report 2

Climate resilient development (CRD) pathways: applicability to navigating a just transition in South Africa

This work presents a Climate Resilient Development Pathways (CRDP) conceptual framework and methodology to facilitate coordinated action transitioning South African society in a just and inclusive manner to be climate resilient and net-zero by the 2050s. The purpose of the work is to establish the basis and set the direction for future knowledge (co)production and planning work in relation to the adaptation and climate resilience aspects of navigating a Just Transition. To ground the conceptual work, the potential application and value-add of a pathways approach in the contexts of eThekwini in KZN and Saldanha Bay on the West Coast is explored. The findings are presented as: (1) a set of guidelines on why and how to operationalize a CRD pathways approach; (2) a set of recommendations for building the climate information and services ecosystem needed to support a CRD pathways approach; (3) a framework for assessing and strengthening capacities for utilizing the approach; and (4) a set of four high-level proposals for taking the CRD pathways work forward.

What are CRD Pathways?

Development trajectories, emerging from past decisions, investments and interventions, stretching out into multiple possible futures, made up of sequences (or portfolios) of interventions to create work opportunities, build and maintain infrastructure and conserve ecosystems that reduce inequality, climate impacts and greenhouse gas emissions proactively as conditions change. CRD pathways are place-based and context-specific with interactions across scales. CRD pathways involve long-term thinking for near-term, joined-up decision-making and action. They are a subset of, and consistent with, sustainable development pathways.

What are practical examples of interventions within a CRD pathway?

It depends a lot on context, but drawing on the eThekwini and Saldanha Bay cases, some examples include:

• Investing in green hydrogen infrastructure to power manufacturing of iron & steel for export and building SA infrastructure.
• Supporting SMEs in aquaculture (e.g., mussels and oysters) with subsidies and enforcement of marine protection rules, especially with large industrial actors.
• Expanding municipal and private on-site water reuse facilities, cleaning water to a quality fit for purpose.
• Enforcing land-use restrictions and creating ecosystem-based employment and livelihood opportunities in biodiversity adaptation corridors, aquifer protection zones and high flood-risk zones, such as clearing solid waste and invasive plants along rivers, revegetating riverbanks and sand dunes.

What is needed to operationalise a CRD pathways approach?

1. Requires putting climate change mitigation and adaptation options onto development trajectories to consider changing risk profiles, synergies, trade-offs and equity implications.
2. Start by identifying multiple existing development pathways in play that are competing for prominence and investment.
3. Recognise that there have been and continue to be major trade-offs between industrialisation, large-scale infrastructure investment (e.g. port expansion) and ecosystem functioning.
4. Need to surface and hold hard conversations about what to save and what to let go of; what is worth protecting at any/all cost and accepting and grieving what we are losing.
5. Less about working backwards from a fixed end goal but rather acting with foresight and adaptability to move towards more desirable futures, ready to navigate uncertainties.
6. Need to interface CRD pathways approach with existing/new planning modalities, for example the District Development Model.
7. Having too much, too little and too polluted water, and the lack of sufficient (let alone clean) energy are critical thresholds we have already exceeded, requiring urgent transformative strategies in South Africa.
8. Many, diverse disciplinary expertise are required to monitor and detect signals of change and risk-related thresholds that prompt investing in additional/alternative interventions and changing course between pathways.
9. Civil society organisations across South Africa are active but are increasingly frustrated with lack of traction in and influence over development decision-making captured by private, corporate interests and unresponsive state entities. This has to change for a credible CRD pathways approach to work.

For further details see the CRDPs guidance report, output 1.

What climate information and services are needed to operationalise a CRD pathways approach?

CRD pathways processes to assess, prioritise and sequence risk-reducing developmental interventions require climate science to characterise current climate hazards and thresholds, based on data from long-term observational monitoring networks, as well as to model future scenarios to anticipate altered thresholds and emerging hazards. This requires investment in the collection, management and accessibility of observational data, research into operational weather and seasonal forecasting and climate change modelling, mechanisms through which climate information is archived, analysed, processed and exchanged, structured means through which climate information users and climate scientists interact, and the development of capacities to communicate, access, interpret and use climate information.

For further details on existing SA climate information platforms and recommendations for further strengthening them see the CRDPs climate information and services report, output 2.

What capacities need to be strengthened to operationalise a CRD pathways approach?

• Awareness of decisions and actions that may be impacted by or impact on climate change
• Technical expertise to assess climate-related risks and opportunities
• Collaborate across knowledge, organisational and spatial boundaries
• Foster meaningful inclusion and distributive justice
• Foster a culture of learning
• Leadership to foster innovation and navigate trade-offs
• Cost options and mobilise resources
• Sustain and maintain developmental risk management interventions
• Detect change signals and trigger course adjustments (i.e. avoid lock ins)

For further details on the capacities, their distribution and opportunities for strengthening see the CRDPs capacity framework report, output 3.

What are opportunities for taking this work forward?

Working with multiple stakeholders to co-development of CRD pathways for:

• eThekwini focussing on flood recovery & preparedness & trade-offs around land uses & employment (linking ongoing work).
• Greater Saldanha Regional Industrial Complex focussing on trade-offs & synergies btw green steel, aquaculture, marine oil & gas servicing, & ecotourism considering trends of reducing water availability & increasing energy constraints / costs.
• Other contexts where there is appetite and opportunities for collaboration.

This will involve consolidating monitoring networks for signal detection, costing interventions, weighing these costs up against the costs of inaction, and exploring blended financing opportunities to fund the interventions.

Assessing and strengthening CRD pathways capacity through:

• Applying the Capacity Diagnosis & Development (CaDD) tool in selected set of priority organisations.
• Develop CRD pathways training materials, including simulation games.

For further details see the CRDPs high-level proposals report, output 4. If any of these opportunities sound interesting and potentially linked to your work, please get in touch.