PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA/ South Africa will host ending this year the 17 version of the Conference of the Parties COP17. The elected city, Durban, makes arrangements to receive delegations from the whole world. No one talks about it.
The new meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol will look forward for an inclusive, wider and strict agreement in order to reach common goals able to tackle climate change.
Mandela´s land
The South African Government regards climate change as one of the greatest threats to sustainable development. The government also believes that climate change, if un-mitigated, also has the potential to undo or undermine many of the positive advances made in meeting South Africa’s own development goals and the Millennium Development Goals.
The country is one of the economies that move strongly through the path of big development, attaching this growth with strong strategies of climate change mitigation. Economical growth is not possible without using huge amount of resources that these days are in scarcity.
Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) South Africa is committed to contribute its fair share to the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and implement strategies to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
Background
In December 2008, South Africa offered to host the 17th session of the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework in Climate Change and the seventh Conference of Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol between 29 November and the 9 December 2011.
South Africa looks forward to welcoming and hosting 185 world nations and is also eager to work with all parties to facilitate the COP 17 process. Durban 2011 has the responsibility to enhance the negotiations held in Cancun, Mexico in 2010, where no agreement was reached but many strategies were put on the table.
The South African Government has already done many achievements towards ensuring a successful event at the end of 2011. The country comes with an experience reached during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, showing that African countries are prepared to face big tasks and to keep up on maintaining compromises.
Political process
South Africa is undertaking informal consultations which will allow the country consider proposals and suggestions from all Parties including Business, Civil Society and other social partners. The nation believes that working together with all relevant sectors of society we will be able to deliver a well-coordinated and organized COP 17.
Cancun gave the possibility to developed countries to agree on continuing to work on a 2nd commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. Secondly, all countries that met in Mexico, agreed to list their commitments or actions, together with an outline of the major building blocks for a future multi-lateral climate change regime.
Even though Cancun hasn´t reached any inclusive agreement, the Climate Change Conferences delivered a remarkably detailed outcome covering all the main elements of the two-track outcome as agreed to in the 2007 Bali Road Map mandate.
To face a future
Durban will be the place to reach a main and inclusive agreement and in this regard, COP 16 has reinvigorated the multilateral process by reflecting the political will of the international community to seriously and urgently address the climate change crisis.
The Cancun negotiations are a set of decisions under both the Convention and its’ Kyoto Protocol and gives South Africa an immense amount of work to do in order to move forward from Cancun to Durban.
For the host land, taking meaningful climate action is about seizing the opportunity to build international competitiveness, new economic infrastructure, sectors and activity; create prosperity and jobs; transform our economy and society; reduce poverty; improve health and quality of life.