South Africa: Addressing the Climate Agenda in Durban
By Shout-Africa Cameroon correspondent with field reports – South Africa will between November 28 and December 9, 2011, host representatives from 194 states for the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17), to discuss reduction of emissions which pollute and alter the global climate.
Since the first meeting of the COP in 1994, recognition of the potential threat of climate change has grown steadily among states. However, progress in addressing this threat has not been so smooth. The COP 17 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be held in the sunny city of Durban, South Africa, from November 28 to December 9.
Durban 2011 will bring together representatives of the world’s governments, international organizations and civil society. The discussions will seek to advance, in a balanced fashion, the implementation of the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol (KP), as well as the Bali Action Plan, agreed at COP 13 in 2007, and the Cancun Agreements, reached at COP 16 last December.
Considering that the first Kyoto Protocol commitment period will expire next year. There is now significant pressure from developing states for a second commitment period to extend this – the only legally-binding set of emission reductions. However if South Africa hope to realise the conference theme of “Working Together, Saving Tomorrow, Today”, they must respond to this pressure with great subtlety. This may be critical, because South Africa has often held the view that negotiating further commitments under the KP should take precedent over other negotiations at the COP. Differences over such agenda priorities played a major part in the near-collapse of COP 15 at Copenhagen. If similar disagreements emerge again in such an intense atmosphere, it is hard to predict what the result will be. Placing the extension of the KP above all other issues at Durban could be a potentially risky strategy.
Conflicting priorities
According to vertic.org, when the UNFCCC working group on the KP met in Bankok and Bonnearlier this year in preparation for Durban, it became clear that differences surrounding this issue were stark. The G-77 group, which represents developing states and includes the expanding nations of China, India and Brazil, have strongly argued that discussions over details must be secondary to securing political commitments to a KP extension. Such political commitment has been described as “the cornerstone of global action” on climate change and an “essential” outcome of the Durban COP. According to the G-77 group, failing to secure a commitment would be an “unacceptable” outcome to the process, and the Arab Group sees a KP extension as a precondition for agreement in other areas of negotiation.
Therefore, for South Africa to secure the route to a successful conference it depends largely on securing EU support if it reconsiders the same technical issues which developing states see as a distraction. The EU made it clear at Bonn that they were “very, very worried” that there had been no discussion on large technical portions of the negotiating text for Durban.
Preparation
Nonetheless, a second commitment period will not spring from nothingness. The conference only spans eleven days. Negotiations will definitely be difficult. On 2 and 8 August 2011, the South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation and current President of COP 17/CMP 7, Ms Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, laid out her country’s preparations and priorities for the Durban COP. Speaking during a meeting discussing women and climate change, she argued that developing a second commitment period under the KP is the most important issue for COP 17.
Knowing Durban
Durban is essentially a place of rich contrasts and honoured traditions. Human habitation in Durban goes back to long before the advent of recorded history in the region. While some of the earliest remnants of humanity are found in the nearby Drakensberg, it is now established that prior to the arrival of the Nguni people and subsequent European colonialists, the area was populated by the original people of Southern Africa – now collectively called the Khoi/San. On Christmas day in 1497, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama passed the mouth of Durban Bay and promptly named it Rio de Natal (Christmas River), presuming that several rivers flowed into the bay.
Before the intrusive advent of industrialisation, the bay was separated from the sea by a sandbar, where crocodiles, hippopotamuses and flamingoes spent their days in the vast waters of the bay while its swampy edges were densely populated with mangroves. Beyond the bay lay a ridge of hills which was home to elephants, hyenas and lions until about a century ago, and now houses Durban’s suburbs.
In 1824, Henry Francis Flynn III and his British comrades settled in Durban. In 1835, the area was named after Cape Governor Sir Benjamin Durban. In 1838, a fight broke out between the Zulus and the newly arrived Voortrekkers. The Voortrekkers ended up defeating the Zulus, especially since they had guns, and life was rather calm for a bit. Then in the 1840s the Voortrekkers began to bicker with the British over who ruled Durban. After much fighting, in 1844, Durban became part of the Brit’s control.
