http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/south-africa-faces-cop-17-balancing-act-2011-10-18

 

South Africa would need to ensure a balanced approach to its roles as a negotiating party and as the president of the seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP 17), to be held in Durban late next month, Imbewu Sustainability Legal Specialist's Dr Marie Parramon said on Tuesday.

 

At a national government level, International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane is the COP 17 president, and her department would be handling the logistics arrangements of the conference, as well as facilitating a successful outcome at COP 17.

The Department of Environmental Affairs would ensure that South Africa's interests were properly represented at the negotiations.

South Africa also faced divergent expectations and needs from various groupings and was under significant pressure, Parramon said.

The country was part of official negotiating groups such as the African Union and the Group of 77, nonofficial negotiating groups such as the Basic (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) group of developing countries, as well as having strong economic relations through its Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) grouping, and bilateral relations with China, the European Union and the US.

While government has stated that it would represent the "African position" at the climate talks, Parramon said many argued that South Africa was not "faithful" to this position.

"South Africa must be careful of what it promises and what it delivers at the climate talks. This has to be the most politically loaded climate change conference and remains a strong challenge for the country," she said.

The country must have the ability to adequately and efficiently manage its national and international agenda. "Even if the outcomes of COP 17 are not achieved to the expectations set out, the country must be able to ensure there is no impact to its macroeconomic objectives."

She added that the South African government's expectation for COP 17 is a deal that would set all parties to a predictable, time-bound resources mechanism to deal with the impacts of climate change in an equitable manner.

The negotiations in Durban would be a party-driven process with South Africa playing an enabling role for parties to find agreement on the salient issues of climate change.

Parramon identified for the need to manage the "ambition gap" in proposed emission reductions and identify options to increase the level of ambition, as current pledges would not achieve a below 2 °C global temperature increase.