Rural Affairs Minister Barry Gardiner attends international climate change talks in South Africa

Rural Affairs Minister Barry Gardiner will tomorrow (Sat) attend international climate change talks in South Africa.

Ministers from 25 nations, including the US, India, China, Mexico and Brazil, will take part in the talks at Kapama, building on the climate change discussions in Bonn last month.

The talks will focus on building on the successes obtained at the Montreal climate change talks last December, and will cover sustainable development, adaptation, technological developments and market-based opportunities as countries look towards a long-term goal to combat climate change. The results will feed into this year's UN climate change talks in Nairobi.

Mr Gardiner said that without a long-term goal and an agreement on how to deliver it, the world will not meet the increasingly urgent challenge of avoiding dangerous impacts from climate change. Action is needed so that developing countries don't have to suffer the serious effects of a warming world.

“We made important progress in 2005 in moving forward the debate on climate change. It is essential that we keep up the momentum in 2006, and agree on how much we need to do and what action we need to take.

“We need to set out where we want to be in 50 years time and not just chip away without a long-term goal. This will not only guide action to tackle the impacts of climate change but also send an essential signal to business and others who have a key role in delivering clean energy technologies.

“We know some countries will be dependent on coal for many decades to come. We now have technologies that enable coal to be burned with less greenhouse gas going into the atmosphere. The trick is to make sure that we can adapt and make this change now.

“I am delighted to be in South Africa and hope that some of the ideas touched upon over the next few days will feed into the discussions at the UN Climate Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, in November.”

Mr Gardiner added that he hoped that this visit would also provide an opportunity to take forward with South Africa's Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk the UK-South Africa Working Group on Climate Change.

The Working Group on Climate Change will aims to enhance policy dialogue on key climate-related issues, take forward bilateral activities to address climate change and feed into other relevant processes.

In particular, it will look at implementation of activities relevant to the Gleneagles Dialogue and Plan of Action; adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change; capacity building; scientific and technological collaboration; economic modelling and long-term scenario planning as well as support for technological transfer among developing countries.

Notes to editors

1  The South Africa talks (Indaba) are taking place from June 17-21 at Kapama. Twenty five countries are attending. It follows the Greenland Dialogue which took place in August 2005.

2  The COP12/COPMOP2 will take place in Nairobi, Kenya from November 6-17, 2006.

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