Equity is an essential issue for climate change mitigation, especially when considering the needs of a large global population in the developing world. The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR/RC) aims to ensure equitable sharing of the climate action burden for signatories given nations' differing historical and current circumstances, but equitable burden-sharing might also be achieved if implemented through policies at a national level. South Africa is highly unequal and effectively has two parallel economies, a developed one that primarily serves the wealthy, and a developing one in which the majority of the population lives (Mbeki, 2003). As such, it internally reflects the global tension between necessary climate action and essential developmental goals. This study evaluates fair intra-national household mitigation shares in South Africa considering the principle of CBDR/RC, and the policy implications of achieving equitable mitigation action. Emulating a study by Arndt et al (2013), an energy-integrated supply-use table (SUT) model is used to examine embodied emissions for aggregate products and industries in the South African economy for three time periods (2005, 2010 and 2015). Household emissions from direct and indirect fossil fuel consumption are assessed by integrating household consumption survey data through multiplier analysis. Household emissions reflect the same “two economies” disparity as income when measured by means of both Gini and Palma indices. A small decline in inequality is observed over the study period, but overall emissions and income inequality in 2015 remain high. Grouping households by mean per capita income and expenditure, household responsibility and capability are assessed as shares of total household emissions and income, respectively. Holz et al. (2017) propose a minimal developmental threshold of $7,500 PPP below which individuals should not bear any mitigation burden, and application of this threshold provides household threshold capability and a combined mitigation and responsibility household equity estimate. Simple equity measures indicate that the top household decile's fair share of all mitigation action is between 44% and 54%, whilst the share of the bottom four deciles is between 5% and 11%. When considering the development threshold, some three-quarters of households would have no burden at all. Finally, the combined equity estimate highlights that the top decile is overwhelmingly responsible for the burden of mitigation action, with the top 2% of households by income carrying 48.1% of the mitigation burden. An assessment of the correspondence between in South Africa's international and national policy concludes that intra-national mitigation equity is necessary to achieve developmental and mitigation goals. National mitigation implementation should therefore secure revenue for mitigation through progressive means. Direct revenue recycling may enhance the security net for low-income households and provide a safety net as the country experiences unavoidable employment shifts during the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Non-motorised transport (NMT) such as cycling and walking has multiple social, economic, environmental, climate and public health benefits and is integral to the agenda of sustainable development. There is considerable potential for more cycling mobility in South Africa, especially in low-income communities (LICs). Barriers to cycling mobility were investigated in Masiphumelele, a LIC in Cape Town, in order to inform recommendations for promoting cycling as a mode of transport in this community and beyond. A mixed methods design of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. A focus group discussion (FGD) with local bicycle shop customers informed the design of a cross-sectional cluster sampling questionnaire and a Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) stated choice survey of 100 household residents. The BWS survey used 10 choice sets of 4statements each to rank the relative importance to study participants of 20 potential barriers to cycling mobility on their average Best-Worse (B-W) scores.

In the last decades, the impacts of climate change have affected people, societies, economic sectors and ecosystems in all the continents and oceans. Climate change will make povertyalleviation harder by slowing down economic growth, eroding food security, and increasing and creating poverty traps. The poor, that are highly dependent on wildlife and natural resources for their persistence, will be affected the most. However, it seems that environmental priorities are not considered in the developmental agendas. If biodiversity and climate change are not included in policy domains other than the environmental, many negative effects will not be adequately mitigated or minimised. Addressing these multidimensional problems requires policy coherence for improving the outcomes of social and environmental policies, and for using more efficiently the limited resources that developing countries have. The overall aim of this study is to determine if there is coherence between the objectives of the National Development Plan and the sectoral programs of Mexico, with a special focus on climate change adaptation and mitigation, povertyalleviation, and biodiversity conservation. Through a discourse network analysis, it was possible to determine the policy components within each program and to systematically identify the connections between them and investigate if there was policy coherence. Since the documents analysed belong to two different levels of the government, it was possible to analyse vertical and horizontal coherence. The analysis showed that there is vertical coherence between the NDP and the sectoral programs, low coherence between the sectoral programs, as well as low coherence between the four policy components of major interest. This analysis increases the very scarce literature on Mexico's policy coherence, providing empirical evidence that allows finding windows of opportunity for improving the coherence between sectoral programs in the future.

This thesis examines the response mechanisms and adaptation strategies adopted by grapevine farmers to counteract the effects of the 2015-2018 Western Cape drought, which was characterised as particularly rare and severe. The challenges that emerged during the drought within the study area were exacerbated by the increasing competition over water resources between urban and agriculture users, as investment to supply water to urban users are expected to bring more economic and social value than investments in water supply for agriculture. The study responds to the dearth of literature on climate change adaptation strategies by grapevine farmers in South Africa. Using information from 27 open-ended, face to face interviews conducted with grapevine farmers operating in the Berg River catchment area, as well as an analysis of existing economic and weather data, the research sought to understand the effects of the water stress on grapevine production, the main cause of yield loss and the key drivers of farmers’ behaviour shifts. Analysis of industry production performance from 2015 to 2018 and observed rainfall from 2015 to 2017 suggests that water stress remains the key factor influencing grapevine yields. The water stress was also found to have catalysed later ripening of red varieties, higher pH levels in the wine and the introduction of emergency pruning methods to reduce water use, which in turn led to uneven budding budding due to pruning methods, later ripening of red varieties, higher pH levels in the wine. It was also found that the depleting quality of the Berg River water led to reduced yield, as well as heightened financial and psychological stress. The research identifies a portfolio of long-term and short-term adaptation options pursued by farmers in the study area, entailing reduced water consumption and increased water efficiency. The research identified that the drought induced farmers to suspend or reduce plant replacement. However, this behavior cannot be explained simply as responses to climate change, but that this is linked to the low profitability of the local wine grape industry. Most farmers adopted incremental measures rather than transformative strategies, where the major barriers to transformative adaptation included uncertainty regarding climate trends, limited financial capacity for large investments, the belief in grapevine drought resilience and the cultural attachment to viticulture.

This thesis investigates the governance of two global challenges in terms of policy learning and collective action. The COVID-19 pandemic and anthropogenic climate change pose critical challenges to human well-being as much as they depend on collective responses to contain them. The comparative analysis of governance structures in climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic shows similarities and differences. A significant difference is the timing and pace of the responses: while international organisations and governments took drastic measures in response to the spread of the coronavirus, global and national responses for climate change have been comparatively slow. However, similarities emerge in the nature of the responses to these two global challenges: individual behavioural change is necessary to manage the challenges, which rarely occur without political guidance and public policy. The thesis combines the concepts of collective action and policy learning in a conceptual framework for the comparative analysis of global governance between the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. The success of the rapid and large-scale coordinated response to the COVID-19 disease outbreak has indicated that these conceptual notions are required for global governance and that they can be harnessed on a large-scale to address a GPG or commons problem. Therefore, in order to more effectively address the GPG problem of climate change, these conceptual notions of global governance need to be harnessed not only between international organisations and governments but between governments and non-state actors. The shared policy challenges of both crises, therefore, highlight the importance of good policy design and the coordination of actors. The lessons identified can be broadly applied to the global commons problem of climate change and can help policy makers identify where enhanced policy learning and collective action is required. In particular this should be applied to coordinate policy learning and collective action from municipal to global levels and enhance the participation of the global public for long-term climate policy.

This study investigated the spatial variability of soil moisture as well as changes within the soil profile of different land use types in the Suid Bokkeveld, situated to the south-west of the Nothern Cape, South Africa. This area has been experiencing harsh weather conditions that affect local agricultural production and multiple livelihood activities. The primary aim of the research was to analyse the influence of land use adopted in response to weather and climate change by studying the effects of soil moisture variations in the area. The study found that, together with depth and soil particle size, different types of land use contribute to soil moisture variations. Out of the five types of land uses that were investigated, rooibos cultivated farms had the highest soil moisture variability. The second highest variability was found in grazing cultivated farms and the lowest in natural and grazing never cultivated land, respectively. The results confirm that the shift from rooibos tea and wheat cultivation to grazing has contributed to a reduction in soil moisture variations. The grazing cultivated and fallow system could therefore be an effective land use types to ensure water and soil conservation, reduce land degradation and adapt to weather and climate change. The significance of this study lies in it being one of the first explorations into soil moisture in this area. Other forcing factors will need to include building a comprehensive and integrated understanding of soil moisture variability based on multiple influencing factors.

Sustainable consumption has long been recognised as essential for the achievement of sustainable development. Whilst early efforts to achieve sustainable consumption focused on using technological innovation and process efficiencies to reduce the resource intensity of products, create new, less toxic, more environmentally friendly products, and/or improve the efficiency of production processes, the inadequacy of production-based approaches alone has been widely accepted. More recent efforts to achieve sustainable consumption have highlighted that a change in the behaviour of individuals is a prerequisite for its achievement. A significant body of research has focusing on trying to understand the determinants of pro-environmental behaviour and specifically the intersection of environmental concern and environmental knowledge in the manifestation in pro-environmental behaviour. The relatively recent concept of environmental citizenship, premised on the existence of concern and knowledge, and rooted in issues of environmental and social justice, has gained traction as an alternative means by which to achieve both sustainable development and sustainable consumption. This dissertation presents research findings from a mixed-method empirical study of the food consumption behaviour of a purposive sample of upper middle income South African retail food consumers. Applying the notion of environmental citizenship, it considers the influence of critical variables widely identified as key to the expression of pro-environmental behaviour, viz. desire to act, knowledge to act, and ability to act. Specifically it considers the relationship between environmental knowledge, environmental concern and pro-environmental behaviour, as well as the barriers and situational factors in the food retail environment which are reported to inhibit the practice of sustainable consumption behaviour. It then considers whether improvements in objective knowledge have an impact on the enactment of environmental citizenship through an increase in pro-environmental behaviour practices. The main conclusion drawn from the findings of this dissertation is that environmental concern and knowledge are positive predictors of pro-environmental behaviour. However, a low incidence of pro-environmental behaviour was evident in the study sample overall. This is most likely as a result of low levels of environmental concern and general lack of objective knowledge although a significant additional barrier could be the lack of a mature market for sustainable food in South Africa. In keeping with international studies, health concerns appear to be both most prevalent and most influential in determining the practice of pro-environmental behaviours. The study also suggests that efforts to increase levels of objective knowledge may have an impact on the practice of sustainable food consumption behaviours.

Sustainable tourism requires accommodation businesses to balance economic, environmental and social issues, taking into account the needs of current and future generations. However, despite the ever E increasing attention on sustainable tourism and the acknowledgement of the impacts of tourism on the environment, this form of tourism only represents a minor share of all tourism. Ecotourism forms part of sustainable tourism and is one of the most common forms of commercially focused wildlife management on privately owned land. Luxury safari lodges are expected to provide a high level of hospitality , luxurious facilities and exquisite cui sine . Consequently, these lodges consume large quantities of resources and are reliant on the adequate supply of water and energy. Safari lodges are also reliant on the natural environment to attract guests. Therefore it is prudent of these businesses to conserve and protect water, energy and ecological resources to ensure the perpetuity of the lodge. Furthermore, both the environment and society benefit from the conservation of these resources. This study investigates the awareness of sustainable tourism and environmental practices in luxury safari lodges. Twenty-five luxury safari lodges in Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces of South Africa were approached and a total of six safari lodges participated in an email E based questionnaire and one took part in semi -structured interviews. The research reveals that luxury safari lodges are aware of sustainable tourism and its importance. In addition, they involved in a number of environmental activities in order to achieve sustainability. The environment is emphasized as central to sustainable tourism, stemming from the fact that these lodges rely on the natural environment to attract guests. Balancing financial commitments to sustainability was found to have an impact on certain aspects of the luxury safari lodges attitudes and actions. The research indicated two key directions to pursue to sustain environmental activities in the luxury safari lodge industry. Firstly, education and awareness of staff and guests is acknowledged as central to supporting and achieving sustainability in luxury safari lodges. Secondly, lodges affiliated with voluntary initiatives such as FTT and Greenleaf are audited regularly to ensure a specific standard has been achieved, thus maintaining sustainable best practices in the lodges. The research concluded that the motivation for achieving sustainable tourism within luxury safari lodges can be seen as driven by: the need to preserve the natural environment, the opportunity to reduce operating costs (increase profitability) and the growing demand for environmentally friendly safari lodges.

Worldwide urbanization and climate change are influential in changing precipitation patterns and hydrological flow resulting in event driven urban flooding. The approach to flood protection has recently shifted from engineered and technical solutions to more sustainable and integrated solutions, by considering social, ecological and physical implications and exploring sustainable urban drainage options. Attenuation of peak stormwater flow using natural wetlands is one of many sustainable urban drainage methods used to reduce flooding and is an approach of interest for this research. The study site is located within the small, urbanized river system of the Liesbeek River in Cape Town, South Africa, which is prone to localized flooding during annual winter rainfall events. The study measures the attenuation capacity of a small-scale wetland adjacent to an urban river using a 2D PCSWMM hydrodynamic model. Research is focused on illustrating the attenuation capacity of this wetland. The model ran historic flow data to determine the attenuation capacity and to measure peak flow reduction. While the reduction is not sufficient to reduce damaging floods, the findings provide new knowledge and understanding of the attenuation capacity of this wetland and motivation for expanding sustainable urban drainage within the catchment. The study aims to build a baseline dataset for the research site with the data available at present. Peak flow of the Liesbeek River was reduced in scenarios with the Valkenberg Wetland present to accept on a portion of this flow. Attenuation was most effective for rainfall events with sudden spikes in peak flow, where a 42 per cent reduction of peak flow was observed. For a scenario with lower flow rates yet a prolonged peak flow rate, the wetland was less effective, with a 20 per cent reduction observed. This wetland was found to have the potential to provide valuable ecosystem services to the area by attenuating peak flow and thus reducing the occurrence of property damaging flooding downstream.

Climate change is one of the most challenging problems of the 21st century. Its effects have already been experienced in the different parts of the world. Farmers face particularly high risks considering that their occupation is climate dependent. Therefore farmers have been implementing different adaptation activities in an effort to reduce the impacts of climate change on their livelihoods. Weather index insurance (WII) has been recommended as one potential climate change adaptation strategy. In Malawi WII was introduced and piloted in 2005 to help farmers get access to loans. In this study the implementation of WII in Malawi is assessed to examine whether it has any role to play in climate change adaptation. Focus group discussions involving 15 farmers, and individual interviews involving two state and five non-state actors who were involved in implementing WII, were conducted. Perceptions and understandings of weather index insurance as a climate change adaptation strategy were examined, and the roles of state and non-state actors were established. The potential for weather index insurance as a means for securing finance for investment into climate resilient crops was also investigated. The study reveals that the design of WII affects how farmers perceive and understand it. In general, farmers see WII as a means for securing loans and not a potential climate change adaptation tool. The study also found that most implementing organisations did not take up the role of promoting awareness about WII and this may have affected the uptake of WII by farmers and organisations that are implementing climate change adaptation projects. The study finds that farmers do not get cash payments when there is a loss event and farmers are not able to choose how the payout must be used. Furthermore, most of the study participants did not have knowledge about climate finance despite its increasing attention at the international level. This study can inform the design of WII so that it can be better implemented as a climate change adaptation tool in Malawi.