COP-17: SA happy with comprehensive deal, says minister
Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa says the government is happy that the United Nations climate change summit (COP-17) in Durban was able to agree on a comprehensive deal and on the detailed design of the Green Climate Fund.
“The design of the fund includes innovative mechanisms for bringing private sector and market mechanisms into play to increase the potential flow of funding into climate change responses,” Ms Molewa said at a media briefing in Pretoria on Monday.
For the past two weeks the eyes of the world had been focused on the summit where more than 130 nations were negotiating the next steps to be taken to ensure an effective global response to the challenge of climate change.
Negotiators agreed a pact on Sunday that would for the first time force all the biggest polluters to take action on greenhouse gas emissions, but critics said the action plan was not aggressive enough to slow the pace of global warming.
The package of accords extends the Kyoto Protocol, the only global pact that enforces carbon cuts; agrees the format of a fund to help poor countries tackle climate change; and maps out a path to a legally binding agreement on emissions reductions.
But many small island states and developing nations at risk of being swamped by rising sea levels and extreme weather said the deal marked the lowest common denominator possible and lacked the ambition needed to ensure their survival.
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