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Linda Steg (Netherlands/EU) SR1.5 Lead Author – Chapter 4 The Summary for Urban Policymakers synthesises the key scientific findings and policy observations from the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR1.5) for officials and policymakers of the world’s cities and urban areas. It details the significance of exceeding a 1.5°C global warming limit, including in urban settings, whilst outlining the four systems transitions – energy, land use and ecosystems, urban and infrastructure, and industry – needed to develop 1.5°C-consistent pathways. It focuses in particular on the urban systems transition, including the necessary enabling conditions, as well as the political, economic and social feasibility of the necessary adaptation and mitigation actions. The document clarifies knowledge gaps and research priorities for urban climate change mitigation and adaptation. Cities and urban areas need to be at the forefront of developing 1.5°C-consistent pathways as shown in this report.

Resilience building has become a growing policy agenda, particularly for urban risk management. While much of the resilience agenda has been shaped by policies and discourses from the global North, its applicability for cities of the global south, particularly African cities, has not been sufficiently assessed. Focusing on rights of urban citizens as the object to be made resilient, rather than physical and ecological infrastructures, may help to address many of the root causes that characterize the unacceptable risks that urban residents face on a daily basis. Linked to this idea, we discuss four entry points for grounding a rights and justice orientation for urban resilience. First, notions of resilience must move away from narrow, financially-orientated risk analyses. Second, opportunities must be created for “negotiated resilience”, to allow for attention to processes that support these goals, as well as for the integration of diverse interests. Third, achieving resilience in ways that do justice to the local realities of diverse urban contexts necessitates taking into account endogenous, locally situated processes, knowledges and norms. And finally, urban resilience needs to be placed within the context of global systems, providing an opportunity for African contributions to help reimagine the role that cities might play in these global finance, politics and science processes.\ud

This study represents the first attempt at an integrated approach to assessing the potential impacts of climate change on the national economy of South Africa via a number of (but not necessarily all) impact channels. The study focuses on outcomes by about 2050. The results show the multiple impacts of climate change and the importance of spatial and temporal variation in these impacts. The study focused in particular on the potential impacts of climate change on the water supply sector, dry-land agriculture, hydropower, roads infrastructure costs and sea level rise. These factors have not been previously considered in a fully integrated way for South Africa. The study considers two future global emissions scenarios - an Unconstrained Emission Scenario (UCE) where global policies to reduce emissions fail to materialize and a Level 1 Stabilization Scenario (L1S) where aggressive emissions policies are pursued. Based on the full range of impact channels considered, economic impacts are showed to be potentially significant particularly resulting from additional roads infrastructure costs and variability in dryland agricultural yields, with only limited impacts due to variability in the ability to supply future water demands. The total impact of climate change on the level of real GDP by about 2050 is found to range between -3.8% and 0.3% compared with a fictional 'no climate change' baseline. While positive outcomes are possible, results indicate that, for the very large majority of climate futures, the impact on total GDP will be negative. The median result shows that by 2050, South Africa's real GDP level will be about 1.5% lower than in the baseline scenario. This translates into a 0.03 percentage point decline in average annual real GDP growth rate. The net present value of the potential impact on GDP out to 2050 is highly variable, ranging from losses of R 930 billion to gains of R 310 billion (real 2007 Rand). About 96% of the climates scenarios show overall losses. The median loss in NPV is approximately Rand 259 billion which, at more than 10% of 2007 GDP, is sizeable and should motivate for action in terms of both mitigation and consideration and funding of potential adaptation scenarios.