South Africa’s environment minister is calling for co-operation between all countries, regardless of their GDP, as the seaside city of Durban takes on hosting duties of the UN climate change negotiations.
The African continent accounts for less than five per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and yet is one of the most vulnerable to its adverse effects. This presents an interesting backdrop for the talks, where issue No. 1 is whether the signatories to the Kyoto Protocol can agree to an extension, or whether it will simply expire in 2012.
South Africa is part of the Kyoto club, after ratifying it in 2002, and supports an extension of the historic agreement. Canada’s position is that it will only sign an agreement that includes all major polluters. That means Kyoto is a non-starter because developing countries including India, China – and South Africa – are not held to any binding caps.
The conflicting priorities and perspectives between Canada and the COP 17 host are well illustrated in two press releases that went out just before the conference commenced, both pertaining to Africa and climate change. One was from Peter Kent, Canada’s environment minister. The other was from Enda Molewa, South Africa’s environment minister.
Kent announced new funding for climate change adaptation in Africa, in keeping with a promise made under the non-binding Copenhagen Accord. The $10 million, distributed through the African Adaptation Research Centres, will provide grants to seven projects across the continent.
Among the funding is $1.3 million for the University of Alexandria in Egypt to establish an adaptation research centre in the Nile Delta, and $1.3 million for an agricultural university in Tanzania to focus research on climate change adaptation strategies for agriculture and water resources in the Horn of Africa.
“These efforts will help developing countries be better equipped to deal with climate change,” Kent said. ” We are very proud of the work we are doing in this area.”
But on the same day, Molewa called on UN countries for the one thing Canada won’t give — new life for Kyoto. In her editorial, she describes the need to renew and revise the protocol as “urgent.” She notes that South Africa is taking steps to do its part, even though the average African generates about 13 times less greenhouse gases than his or her counterpart in North America.
“Responding to climate change requires global co-operation and accountability,” she writes. “The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio established the Polluter Pays Principle. In the context of climate change, this implies a responsibility on the behalf of developed nations to not only mitigate their emissions, but take a degree of responsibility for the consequences of their emissions on the developing world.”
South Africa is committed to reducing emissions by 34 per cent below a business-as-usual trajectory in 2020, with financial and technical support from the developed world. That means the kind of help Kent announced Friday.
But it wasn’t financing that Molewa dedicated her editorial to in the lead-up to the negotiations. It was Kyoto. She ended with a call for countries to work together in Durban to produce “a credible, fair, equitable and balanced outcome.”
Origin
Source: iPolitico
The African continent accounts for less than five per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and yet is one of the most vulnerable to its adverse effects. This presents an interesting backdrop for the talks, where issue No. 1 is whether the signatories to the Kyoto Protocol can agree to an extension, or whether it will simply expire in 2012.
South Africa is part of the Kyoto club, after ratifying it in 2002, and supports an extension of the historic agreement. Canada’s position is that it will only sign an agreement that includes all major polluters. That means Kyoto is a non-starter because developing countries including India, China – and South Africa – are not held to any binding caps.
The conflicting priorities and perspectives between Canada and the COP 17 host are well illustrated in two press releases that went out just before the conference commenced, both pertaining to Africa and climate change. One was from Peter Kent, Canada’s environment minister. The other was from Enda Molewa, South Africa’s environment minister.
Kent announced new funding for climate change adaptation in Africa, in keeping with a promise made under the non-binding Copenhagen Accord. The $10 million, distributed through the African Adaptation Research Centres, will provide grants to seven projects across the continent.
Among the funding is $1.3 million for the University of Alexandria in Egypt to establish an adaptation research centre in the Nile Delta, and $1.3 million for an agricultural university in Tanzania to focus research on climate change adaptation strategies for agriculture and water resources in the Horn of Africa.
“These efforts will help developing countries be better equipped to deal with climate change,” Kent said. ” We are very proud of the work we are doing in this area.”
But on the same day, Molewa called on UN countries for the one thing Canada won’t give — new life for Kyoto. In her editorial, she describes the need to renew and revise the protocol as “urgent.” She notes that South Africa is taking steps to do its part, even though the average African generates about 13 times less greenhouse gases than his or her counterpart in North America.
“Responding to climate change requires global co-operation and accountability,” she writes. “The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio established the Polluter Pays Principle. In the context of climate change, this implies a responsibility on the behalf of developed nations to not only mitigate their emissions, but take a degree of responsibility for the consequences of their emissions on the developing world.”
South Africa is committed to reducing emissions by 34 per cent below a business-as-usual trajectory in 2020, with financial and technical support from the developed world. That means the kind of help Kent announced Friday.
But it wasn’t financing that Molewa dedicated her editorial to in the lead-up to the negotiations. It was Kyoto. She ended with a call for countries to work together in Durban to produce “a credible, fair, equitable and balanced outcome.”
Origin
Source: iPolitico
No comments:
Post a Comment