Assessing the Inclusion of Climate Change Strategies in the Integrated Transport Plans of South African Metropolitan Municipalities

Abstract

Transport contributes to Green House Gases (GHG) emissions, which in turn aggravates the climate events and lead to global warming. Climate change has become a universal problem. In view of this problem, content analysis research method was utilised to establish whether all the South African metropolitan municipalities includes climate change considerations in their transport planning procedures. The Integrated Transport Plans (ITP) of eight metropolitan municipalities were analysed. The analysis revealed that out of the eight metropolitans, three have not yet mainstreamed climate change considerations into their planning, particularly the mitigation actions and strategies to minimise the effects of climate change in the transport sector. The other five municipalities have mainstreamed climate consideration into their ITPs with special attention on GHG emission mitigation. The assumption drawn is if climate change is strategically and systematically included in the transport planning, the GHG emissions from the transport sector could be curbed and the effects and impact be significantly minimised if the considerations are well implemented. The paper recommends that municipalities should mainstream climate change into transport planning in responding to its economical, efficient and cost effective manner in order to minimise the vulnerability of the road transport sector to the impacts of climate change. This can be realised through adaptive capacity building and creating acclimate change resilient road transport sector. The paper then presents the recommendations on how better to mainstream climate change into transport planning.