Half-baked forecast for climate talks

27 November 2011 - 03:31 By SUTHENTIRA GOVENDER
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MINISTER of International Relations Maite Nkoana-Mashabane has asked some 15000 delegates to do more than just spout hot air during the two-week COP17 climate change conference in Durban.

The city is gloomily being touted as the graveyard for the Kyoto Protocol - the globe's most significant treaty on climate change, first adopted in 1997 in Japan. And it's a perception that Nkoana-Mashabane, as president of the 17th edition of the UN climate change conference, desperately wants to dispel.

She said participating countries needed to display a level of "maturity" in coming up with solutions.

But there may already be a snag. On Friday, the US was accused of threatening to derail the meeting by apparently refusing to sign up to the blueprint for the Green Climate Fund, a $100-billion pot designed to help developing nations combat climate change.

It emerged at the 2009 summit in Denmark and is seen as a gesture by the wealthiest nations to share the cost of cutting emissions.

The Financial Times reported that the US, along with Saudi Arabia, were refusing to sign it. The US special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, was quoted as saying the US supported the fund in principle but its design was "a little bit problematic".

The UN's climate change secretary Chris Huhne downplayed the development and said the two countries' opposition was merely "negotiation tactics" ahead of the summit. "In any negotiation, the one thing people don't like doing is giving away things until the final deal," he said.

A US insider yesterday told the Sunday Times the Americans had "always been supportive of the Green Climate Fund and we are committed to working with other countries ".

But the insider said what was needed in Durban was to ensure the blueprint, "which is effectively the constitution of the fund, is drafted well and creates a solid foundation".

For the next fortnight delegates will attend plenary sessions and workshops where they will discuss:

  • Greenhouse gas data from various governments;
  • Approaches to address loss and damage associated with climate change in developing countries;
  • Government proposals for amendments to the Kyoto Protocol; and
  • Maximising the use of renewable energy sources.

Among those expected to attend are the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres; India's Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan; and the president of the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed, whose island nation is at risk from rising sea levels.

Climate change activists such as New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and Al Gore, will also be present, as will celebrities including Angelina Jolie and Leonardo diCaprio.

But fears are mounting that Durban will turn into yet another talk shop. Nkoana-Mashabane urged delegates: "There is an urgent need for all parties to approach this year's negotiations with an element of maturity."

She said the outcomes of COP16 conference in Cancun, Mexico, were laudable but "did not address pertinent political issues such as the future of the Kyoto Protocol".

The president of COP16, Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, officially opens the conference tomorrow. Nkoana-Mashabane will close the event on December 9.

Greenpeace is one of several groups that are sceptical . " Durban could have been the place where a climate-saving deal was agreed, but sadly that won't happen," said its executive director Kumi Naidoo.

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