中国气候变化信息网 China Climate Change Info-Net

South Africa regards the global climate change response as part of sustainable development agenda and not just a purely environmental issue, the South African government said on Monday.

This message will be delivered at the high-level segment of the 18th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference or COP 18/ CMP 8, being held in Doha, Qatar, according to the Ministry of Water and Environmental Affairs (MWEA).

The COP is a platform where the international community of nations negotiate the next steps that need to be taken to ensure an effective global response to the global challenge of climate change.

"An effective global solution to the climate change crisis involves the negotiation of delicate balances and tradeoffs between a wide range of extremely complex, highly political and sometimes conflicting set of social, economic and environmental development issues," MWEA Minister Edna Molewa said.

South Africa needs a strengthened international climate regime that ensures global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with what is required by science, she said.

"To this end, we need to ensure that the impacts of climate change do not undermine development in our own country, the African continent and the world at large," she said.

South Africa hosted COP17 / CMP7 in Durban last December, where participating parties agreed to a three-pronged approach to cope with climate change. The approach calls for, among others, taking urgent action now, from 2013 to 2020, including the adoption of a 2nd Commitment Period under the Kyoto Protocol; and a number of institutional mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund.

It is the responsibility of COP18/CMP8 to decide on how to deal with all issues that do not find satisfactory resolution by the end of 2012, MWEA said.