Pretoria – Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa has urged parties at the climate talks in Warsaw, Poland, to take urgent action to mitigate climate change.
Speaking at the High Level Segment of the 19th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and 9th session of the conference of the Parties (COP19/CMP9), Molewa said disasters such as Typhoon Haiyan, which has killed over 5 000 people and devastated the Philippines, was a clear indication that leaders needed to act on the commitments made to turn the tide on global warming.
“This tragedy underlines the real world consequences described in the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which reconfirmed that human induced global warming and resulting climate change is unequivocal; that without urgently and significantly increasing ambition, the global surface temperature will exceed 2 degrees Celsius,” said Molewa.
COP 19, which commenced on 11 November, has seen United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon criticise some developed countries for backtracking in fighting climate change.
He lashed out at some rich countries "which are supposed to be taking leadership" but are actually "backtracking" in battling global warming. Without singling out specific countries, Ban said what some countries did was "quite disappointing", and urged them to "take urgent action". He also singled out Typhoon Haiyan as an alarm call.
Ban also called on countries to raise the bar in terms of their plans to cut carbon emissions.
Molewa said this was crucial if Africa -- which is shown to be extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Adaptation Gap report -- is to thrive.
“The need for urgent and ambitious action, demands a two-fold focus in Warsaw: firstly, the full implementation of the post 2012 Cancun, Durban and Doha agreements; in particular, to close the pre-2020 mitigation and adaptation ambition gaps, while recognising that this can only be achieved by also closing the finance, technology gap and capacity gaps.
“Secondly, we need a clear roadmap, via Lima, to conclude in Paris the ADP negotiation of a legal agreement under the Convention, which is applicable to all,” said Molewa.
She said in order to fully implement the commitments already made, parties must urgently:
- ratify theKyoto Protocol amendments for a 2nd Commitment Period;
- finalise the Kyoto accounting rules; as well as clarifying Convention pledges and agree on urgent work of Convention institutions; and
- agree on a concrete adaptation work programme under the Nairobi Work Programme, as well as National Adaptation Plan guidelines and adaptation finance.
“It would be remiss of me if I did not lament the distinct lack of progress on
establishing a loss and damage institutional arrangement as agreed in Doha.
Furthermore, it is critical that measures to address loss and damage are
supported by finance,” said Molewa.
She said the Warsaw conference must agree to mobilise at least US $20 billion a year for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) over the next four years. The minister reiterated South Africa’s commitment to work to set the foundation for a fair, ambitious and legal outcome at the 2015 Paris Conference. – SAnews.gov.za-Xinhua
