Pretoria - International Relations and Cooperation Minister Nkoana-Mashabane, in her capacity as
COP17/CMP7 President, will on Friday host an informal ministerial meeting on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action in Bonn, Germany.
According to the department, it is expected that 45 countries, representing all the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiating blocs, will participate in the meeting.
The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17), which took place in November 2011 in Durban, delivered a comprehensive package of decisions that advances the global effort to address climate change.
The establishment of the Ad-hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) paves the way for a protocol, legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force that is applicable to all parties and to be completed by 2015 and implemented from 2020.
The Durban Platform decision further launches a workplan on enhancing mitigation ambition to identify and to explore options for a range of actions that can close the ambition gap with a view to ensuring the highest possible mitigation efforts by all Parties.
In addition, COP decided that the ADP shall plan its work in the first half of 2012. The first meeting of the ADP is scheduled to take place during the May 2012 sessions in Bonn.
It is further expected that the meeting in Bonn will be an opportunity for Ministers to assess the realities that need to be met, as well as to renew the commitments made in Durban to address the urgent challenges related to climate change, including ensuring an urgent and effective global response to keep the rise in average global temperature below the goal of 1.5/2 Degrees Celsius.
