City of Johannesburg

GPC-compliant Greenhouse Gas Inventory for 2014

First draft compiled for the Department of Environment and Infrastructure Services (final GPC report pending)

10 November 2015Stephen Davis, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability – Africa

Assisted by Michael Doust, C40 Cities – Climate Leadership Group

Figure 1. Infographic for the 2007 Baseline Greenhouse Gas Inventory

1. Introduction

1.1This report provides a summary of the City of Johannesburg’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory. The work was undertaken by ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability – Africa through a service level agreement with the City of Johannesburg. It is the second city-wide inventory produced for the city and uses the global protocol for community scale greenhouse gas emissions (GPC) methodology. Johannesburg was the first African City to use the draft GPC guidelines to estimate its emissions in 2012.

1.2The 2014 inventory is the first GPC compliant inventory compiled for the City. It builds on the pioneering work undertaken by Siemens who compiled the first inventory for the City for the 2007 calendar year. Siemens prepared the initial report under an arrangement with C40 in 2012, and analyses the high-level changes between the two inventory years. As part of the service level agreement, ICLEI Africa also carried out a comparative analysis of the inventories for 2007 and 2014 to help inform their Climate Change Framework which is currently under development. The comparative analysis was based on pre-GPC compliant inventories to ensure that a like-for-like comparison could be conducted. Therefore the figures will be different from those contained in this final GPC report. The differences are a result of including certain data sources (for example non-technical losses) not being included in the pre-GPC compliant report.

1.3All cities face challenges with collecting and reporting data related to their greenhouse gas emissions and Johannesburg is no exception. Good data collection is the first and most important step in understanding the City’s emissions and how to improve its measurement over time. High quality data is also the cornerstone to developing deliverable and measurable strategies and programmes. Importantly it also allows cities and its citizens to track progress against targets and understand how well programmes are performing. Ultimately high quality data gives confidence and reduces risks to policy makers and financiers when making decisions about city policies, programmes and infrastructure. The accuracy of the inventory and the salience of the comparison are dependent on the quality of the data used to derive the inventories. The final report will re-iterate some of the challenges in data collection presented in the 2012 report and make recommendations on how data collection can be improved going forward.

1.4 This report represents the next step beyond building a baseline. It helps the City understand what the various factors impacting its emissions trajectory are, and enables decisions about programmes or policies the City might wish to put in place.

1.5The purposes of the 2014 update to are to see what progress has been made with regard to data adequacy, and to understand the emerging pattern of emissions over time, and to enable the City to make projections for the likely future trajectory of emissions. Having a baseline and a recent update in the inventory also allows the City to set targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions, and monitor progress towards those targets. The target-setting and modelling of sectoral climate change actions and their associated contributions to emissions reductions will be carried out immediately on completion of this update. At the same time the City will need to continue to scrutinise the data, and put systems in place for regular collection and enhancement of the data used for compiling the inventory and measuring progress towards the targets.

1.6The GPC provides an important platform for cities to report their emissions in a consistent and replicable way and allows for comparison. The GPC was finalised at the end of 2014, and the updated inventory has been carried out with reference to the latest GPC guidelines. C40’s team are acknowledged for the vital role they played in ensuring that the results below are complaint with the GPC.

2. Johannesburg: a world class African city

2.1Johannesburg is South Africa’s largest and fastest growing city. Johannesburg is located in the province of Gauteng, which is also home to South Africa’s capital Pretoria, 62 km north east of Johannesburg. The metropolitan area of Johannesburg was formed in 2000 by the merger of five previously independent municipal areas. The city covers 1,644 km2 with an average density of 1,963 persons per km2.

2.2The City has 4.7 million residents living in 1.5 million households. Between 1996 and 2014 the population has increased by an average of 3.1% every year. 43,000 new homes have also been added every year since 2001. The City is forecast to double in size by 2040i. Johannesburg is also a young city with 42% of the population under 24 years of age.

2.3The City is divided into seven administrative regions as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 2. City of Johannesburg regions

G

F

E

B

D

C

A

Region A: Diepsloot & MidrandRegion B: Northcliff & RandburgRegion C: RoodeportRegion D: Greater SowetoRegion E: Sandton & AlexandraRegion F: Inner CityRegion G: Ennerdale & Orange Farm

2.4Johannesburg is the financial centre of South Africa; the city is home to the headquarters of mining companies, financial institutions and many other multinational corporations. It has the headquarters of 70% of South Africa’s businesses. In 2014, the province of Gauteng had a gross domestic product of 811 billion Randi, of which Johannesburg contributed 47.7 per centii.

2.5 Table 1 shows the composition of Johannesburg’s economy. The vast majority of the City’s GVA comes from the tertiary and secondary sectors. Finance & business services accounts for over 30% of the economy. Other important sectors include community services (21%), manufacturing (13%) and wholesale and retail trade (18%). The trend between 2007 (the year of the baseline inventory) and 2011 is a shift towards greater tertiary sector dominance of the economy with the reduction attributed to a decline in manufacturing by nearly 5%. This sectoral shift explains part of the notable decline in electricity consumption in the Commercial Sector. As the economic activities shift away from manufacturing (and primary activities such as mining), electricity consumption will decline. Although figures were not available for 2014, it is expected that the decline in the share of manufacturing and mining would have extended even further.

Table 1: Johannesburg’s economy by GVA and employment

2007 2011

Sector Share of GVA (%)

Employment (%)

Share of GVA (%)

Employment (%)

Financial & Business Services

28.46 23.66 29.6 26.6

Households 8.5Community Services

20.11 15.27 21.0 17.4

Wholesale and Retail Trade

16.04 15.1 17.9 21.1

Transportation and Communication

7.38 5.67 8.3 6.1

Sub-totalTertiary Sector

71.99 59.7 76.8 79.7

Manufacturing 19.26 23.16 13.0 13.2Construction 3.75 6.23 4.8 5.4Electricity, Water and Gas

2.4 0.95 2.7 0.7

Sub-totalSecondary Sector

25.41 30.34 20.5 19.3

Mining and Quarrying

2.22 0.68 2.5 0.7

Agriculture 0.38 0.54 0.3 0.4Sub-total 2.6 1.22 2.8 1.1

Primary SectorSource: Source: Global Insight REX Data, April 2013

3. The Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Why develop the GPC?3.1The World Resources Institute (WRI) has partnered with ICLEI – Local

Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), the World Bank, UN-HABITAT, and United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to develop the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GPC).

3.2The GPC recognizes the importance of cities to climate change. Cities now account for 50% of global population and by 2050 75% of people will live in them. In addition cities are responsible for two thirds of global energy consumption and 70% of emissions of greenhouse gases iii. Cities are central to tackling climate change. In order to reduce their emissions cities need to be able to track their emissions and understand the impact of their policies and programs on them. In addition to secure financing, funders must be confident that the projected outputs from their programmes and projects are robust.

3.3 Cities need to learn from each other. An important step in that process is ensuring that cities are reporting in the same formats and to the same methodology. As well as helping cities to share their data, adopting the same methodology and standardizing inventories will give funders more confidence in climate related projects and allow for better scrutiny of the performance of our cities.

3.4The GPC serves as the global framework for accounting and reporting city and community-scale GHG emissions that covers scope 1, scope 2, and some scope 3 emission sources.

GPC Reporting standards3.5 In May 2012, the partners released the GPC Pilot Version 1.0, which is

currently being tested in over 30 cities around the world. The release of final version took place in 2014. The associated guidance in this latest version has been used in developing this inventory.

3.6The GPC methodology has three levels - Basic, Basic+ and Expanded. Box 1 gives an overview of the three levels and also explains the different scopes of emissions collected by the methodology. The sources and scopes reported in each level of the GPC are set out in Table 2.

Table x The GPC Scopes and Sources covered by Basic, Basic+ and Expanded levels

Box 1: GPC three inventory levels and GHG Emissions Scopes

BASIC Cities shall report all GHG emissions from Stationary Energy sources and fugitive emissions in scope 1, and those from use of grid-supplied electricity, steam, heating, and cooling in scope 2.

BASIC+Cities shall report all BASIC sources and scope 3 GHG emissions associated with transmission and distribution (T&D) losses from grid-supplied electricity, steam, heating, and cooling. Emissions from energy generation supplied to the grid shall be reported as part of total scope 1 emissions, but not included in BASIC/BASIC+ totals.

Expanded Covers in addition to Basic+ all scope 3 emissions from consumption based emissions including from the importing and exporting of all goods and services.

GHG Emissions Scopes

GHG emissions in geographic areas are categorized into three scopes

Scope 1 emissionsAll direct GHG emissions sources from activities taking place within the city boundary – for example the use of fuels such as gas to provide heating in buildings

Scope 2 emissionsEnergy-related indirect GHG emissions that result as a consequence of use of grid-supplied electricity, heating and/or cooling, within the city boundary. For example electricity consumed within a building within the city from a power plant outside the city boundary.

Scope 3 emissionsAll other [i.e. other than Scopes 1 and 2] indirect GHG emissions that occur as a result of activities within the city boundary. For example transmission and distribution losses from the use of grid-supplied electricity, steam, heating and cooling in a city.

Table 1. Sources and scopes of GHG emissions covered by each GPC reporting level.

4. Johannesburg Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Baseline 4.1The baseline for the City of Johannesburg’s emissions inventory was 2007.

This year was selected as it had the most comprehensive data sets available at the time of production. However in some instances 2007 data was not available. In these situations the latest available data was used (where emissions appear to be fairly consistent year on year) or estimates for 2007 were back-cast from the latest available dataset. The limitations of the data are set out in the Baseline report compiled by Siemens.

4.2 The data presented below in this report is for the 2014 calendar year. Where data for particular sectors or fuels was not available, the same figures have been used for the 2007 inventory. The main sources of deviation from the previous inventory are a result of reduced waste volumes reported in 2014, and more importantly a reduction in electricity sales of around 5.5% over that period. The reduction in electricity consumed is despite population increasing at the historical rate of 3.1% per annum over the period. This is a trend repeated in many large cities across the country, as the 2015 State of Energy in South African cities report highlights. While it is difficult to pinpoint the cause, electricity price increases, and a structural shift in the economy towards an increased contribution of the services sector to GVA (Gross Value Added) are likely to have been major drivers. It should be noted however that the 2007 and 2014 inventories did not include non-technical losses, which are known to represent a significant portion of electricity consumed within the City Boundary by both Eskom and City Power supplied users.

4.3Although from this data emissions may appear to be on the decline, there has simultaneously been a marked increase in transport related emissions. Transport emissions can rise while overall emissions decline because electricity consumption is responsible for the majority of emissions. In other words, every unit additional of energy consumed in the transport sector is responsible for much lower quantity greenhouse gas emissions than an additional unit of electricity (in South Africa the electricity sector is dominated by coal so that every unit of electricity contributes and average of 1,07kg of CO2). Nevertheless, the increased energy and emissions use in transport is indicative of a worsening trend in resource (energy) efficiency and requires attention.

City-wide Emissions Summary

4.4Table 3 sets out the City of Johannesburg’s estimated emissions for 2014. In total 27.4 million tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) were emitted. The largest contributor is the Commercial & Industrial sector which accounted for 9.0 million tonnes of CO2e followed by the Transport sector with 8.7 million tonnes. The Residential sector accounted for 7.6 million tonnes, and Waste and Wastewater sector with 1.7 million tonnes. No estimates of emissions for the Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU) or Agriculture Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) were included in this report due to a lack of data.

Figure 3. 2014 GHG Emissions Source (By Sector and Scope)

Figure 4. GHG Emissions by Sector and Sub-sector for 2014

Historical Comparison4.5For a like-for-like comparison with the 2007 inventory, a more detailed

comparison and analuysis is provided in the Comparative Analysis Report dated 5 October 2015

4.6Electricity consumption figures were based on the best available data from City Power and Eskom, however the figures used in this report were not verified at the time of writing. It is recommended that the City endeavours to obtain internal verification of the numbers used, particularly for electricity which is the dominant source of emissions in the inventory. Similar verification is recommended for the wastewater treatment volumes, and solid waste disposal figures. The liquid fuels data is sourced from the Department of Energy, and it is noted that there are inconsistencies in the data over time which will affect the quality of this inventory. For example the near 50% increase in aviation fuel consumption between 2007 and 2014.

4.7Certain figures could not be updated, as the relevant party had not responded to the requests at the time of the inventory, and where no response was obtained, the same figures were used as for 2007. Examples include the figures for waste incineration, gas supplied by Egoli gas, and rail data. Where possible, the 2007 figures have been adjusted to compensate for the change in drivers of activity data (for example population, number of households, etc.). Coal, and paraffin usage were estimated using a similar methodology as the 2007 inventory, but updated according to 2011 census data on the number of households using those fuel types, and the end-uses of these fuels. More specific details of each data source will be provided in the final GPC report. Attempts were also made to obtain additional data (e.g. from Industrial Processes and Product Use, but none had been obtained at the time of compilation).

4.8Much of the data verification should be possible within the City’s own departments, without creating any additional reporting burdens. For example, waste water volumes, and solid waste disposal figures required for the inventory calculation are no different to the figures required for annual reporting of these measures.

5. Concluding remarksa. The emissions of the City are a direct correlation of urban planning and

spatial form. Without a reform in patterns of development, linked to

transport oriented development and densification, the emissions (and energy consumption) will continue to rise.

b. The relevant departments did not verify much of the data, and while every effort is has been made to validate the numbers and interrogate the information, data quality needs to be improved through the means available within the institutional mandates and structures of the City.

c. The increase in transport emissions highlight the importance of initiatives such as the Ecomobility festival that is encouraging behavioural changes a modal shift, particularly toward public transport in dense areas like Sandton.

d. The comparison of the two inventories emphasises the need to link and mainstream emission reductions into all departmental planning and performance agreements.

e. The trend in emissions and energy observed between 2007 and 2014 is mirrored in other cities in SA, and while projects of the City have made a difference, it is overall behaviour of residents and commercial/industrial users that will determine the overall trend into the future. The City has an influential role to play in encouraging and enabling shifts in these sectors. Beyond the City’s own actions, there are wider trends such as the shift in the generation mix of the national grid over which it has limited control, but can look to play an increasing role should it wish to further its agenda of becoming a globally competitive and resource-efficient city of the future.

i http://www.joburg.org.za/gds2040/pdfs/joburg2040_gds.pdfii Provincial and Region Economic Outlook 2010, Gautengiii http://c40-production-images.s3.amazonaws.com/fact_sheets/images/5_Fact_20Sheet_20Why_20Cities_203.1.12.original.pdf?1390370461