Climate fund expected to get the green light

The establishment of a green climate fund is likely be formalised at the 17th annual UN Convention on Climate Change in Durban later this year.

Signatories to the convention first proposed the fund - aimed at helping developing countries to initiate projects, programmes, policies and other activities aimed at mitigating climate change - in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009. They discussed it again in Cancun, Mexico, last year.

Addressing journalists in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, yesterday, the UN Development Programme's environmental finance director, Yannick Glemarec, said the establishment of the fund should be formalised in Durban. The conference runs from November 28 to December 9.

"We are likely to see progress made on climate-change finance, the green climate fund and technology transfer," he said.

''A number of negotiating parties are quite positive on the progress that will be made regarding the green climate fund, and on technology transfer."

The Cancun conference, said Glemarec, had decided that $100-billion (R705-billion) should be raised by 2020 to help establish programmes aimed at dealing with climate change across the globe.

"We expect that a certain percentage of this $100-billion will be managed through the Green Climate Fund," he said.

Thoughe Glemarec was positive about the green fund, he said it was unlikely that the Durban conference would be able to find a legally binding solution that would extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond next year.

About 40 of the most industrialised nations are signatories to the protocol, which binds them to limiting their greenhouse emissions.

But the US, the second-biggest emitter of pollutants after China, did not sign the protocol.

''I understand that some negotiators do not want the Durban conference to be the graveyard of the Kyoto Protocol, so there would definitely be efforts made by a number of parties to try to reach a deal, but it will certainly be very difficult," Glemarec said.

"Right now, countries haven't yet reached an agreement on a new commitment of the Kyoto Protocol. And it was one of the most debated points in Cancun.

"A number of industrialised countries who are members of, or party to, the Kyoto Protocol will not support the extension of the protocol unless some big emitters also jointhe Kyoto protocol," he said.

Poor and emerging economies want to see the Kyoto Protocol extended.

But developed economies such as Japan, Russia, and Canada have made it clear that they will not support moves to have the protocol extended beyond 2012.

At a recent meeting in Inhotim, Brazil, South Africa, India, China and Brazil called on industrialised nations to step up their commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They said that agreeing on aan extension of the Kyoto Protocol is "the central priority" for the Durban talks.