SA to host Basic meeting in April 2010

2010/01/28

The Basic-group of countries – Brazil, SA, India and China – attended a meeting in Delhi, during the weekend of 22 January to establish the way forward on working together toward the next stages of the international climate change process. The Basic group meetings come after the production of the ‘Copenhagen Accord’, a non-binding deal stemming from the UNFCCC COP15 which took place in Copenhagen in December 2009.

According to a press statement issued following the talks, the countries attending the meeting also agreed to communicate information on their climate change mitigation actions to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change by 31 January 2010.

They have urged the Danish government to convene the two ad-hoc working groups negotiating long-term co-operative action and further emission reduction commitments, set up in Copenhagen, at least five times before the next meeting in Mexico (UNFCCC COP16) scheduled for November 29 to December 10 this year. SA has agreed to host the next meeting of the Basic group of countries in April.

The ministers meeting in Delhi, who included Buyelwa Sonjica, South Africa's Minister for Water Affairs and the Environment, also called for the early flow of the pledged $10bn in 2010, as stated in the Copenhagen Accord, with a focus on the least developed countries, small island developing states and countries of Africa, as proof of their commitment to urgently address the global challenge of climate change.

For more on the meeting, please see the joint press statement issued by the SA Department of Environmental Affairs.