The built environment and climate change in South Africa

The demands of climate change are appraised in relation to the impacts on and contribution of the built environment in South Africa to climate change. These demands are situated within the broader South African developmental context. The current status and scope of national policy and strategy initiatives aimed, first, at mitigating the role of the built environment in climate change, and, second, at adapting current settlement and construction practices to projected climate change in the country are assessed. Suggestions are made for filling the identified gaps in policy development and research. The paper concludes that climate change is not a major item on the country's research and policy development agendas, and the country is reluctant to take responsibility for its own role in the crisis. Both adaptation and mitigation is happening in an ad hoc manner, often driven by pressures other than climate change, and the task of interweaving the demands of climate change into South Africa's settlement development policies is yet to be attempted in a focussed manner.