Under a programme, led by the Clinton foundation, Johannesburg is one of fifteen cities around the world to begin cutting carbon emissions by renovating city-owned buildings with green technology, with the potential to reduce energy use by 20% to 50%.

pic:jhb-direct.comThe initiative was announced yesterday as part of a climate summit hosted by Bill Clinton in New York City this week at which more than 40 of the world’s biggest and most polluted cities have been discussing ways to tackle climate change.

The makeovers will include replacing heating, cooling and lighting systems with energy-efficient networks; making roof white or reflective to deflect more for the sun’s heat, sealing windows and installing new models that let more light in; and setting up sensors to control more efficient use of lights and air conditioning. [forbes]

Buildings are among a city’s worst culprits in contributing to emissions – often as much as 79% of a city’s total carbon count. The chairman of the Clinton Climate Initiative said cities and private building owners would like to build and renovate with more energy efficiency, but often cannot put up the initial costs.

The partnership that involves Clinton’s private foundation, four of the world’s largest energy service companies and five of the biggest banks - Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS AG, and ABN Amro - is contributing 5 billion dollars to help combat global warming.

"They're going to save money, make money, create jobs and have a tremendous collective impact on climate change all at once," Clinton said in a statement.

The energy savings are expected eventually to offset the costs of the programme, although a time frame has yet to be announced. With the money from the banks, cities will get the green technology at no cost. The programme assumes that cities already have money in their budgets set aside for building operations and will pay back loans, plus interest, through the energy savings that the projects achieve over several years.

The other cities are: Bangkok, Berlin, Chicago, Houston, Karachi, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York, Rome, Sao Paolo, Seoul, Tokyo and Toronto. [inquirer]