South Africa's contribution to climate change negotiations was viewed as "very very welcome", and the country was "playing a very positive role", said British Climate Change Minister Joan Ruddock on Tuesday.

Addressing participants at the British High Commission in Pretoria, by way of teleconference from London, she added that South Africa's influence in the Southern African region was also notable.

"I haven't yet met your new [Water and Environmental Affairs] Minister [Buyelwa] Sonjica, but I know that others from the UK have, and that she made a very good contribution at the recent meeting, for which we were extremely appreciative. There has also been very considerable leadership from her in various other meetings," added Ruddock.

Having recently returned from the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Italy, which had a significant focus on climate change, and reaching a new post-2012 global climate deal in Copenhagen, Ruddock said that she remained optimistic that a deal would be reached, but emphasised that it must be fair.

The Copenhagen meeting is a mere 20 weeks away, and there are three meetings leading up to it, where the potential details of a deal would be worked on.

The financial package post-2012 - how much it would be, how it would be gathered and administered - was one of the major sticking points to finalising the deal.

"We think it is possible to make a deal [at Copenhagen] and we don't want to be on one side or the other - we are absolutely in this together," Ruddock said, referring to the perceived split between the developed and developing world negotiators.

At the G8 summit, industrialised nations reached an agreement, committing that there be no more than 2 ºC average global temperature warming (above pre-industrialised levels), and Ruddock affirmed that this was a start, even though there would still be damage from global warming consequences at that level.

It was estimated that this meant lowering emissions by a hefty 80% by 2050.

It was also understood that developing nations, like South Africa, would need substantial financial support, from the developed world, to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and adapt to cope with the consequences of climate change.

"If we don't help developing countries, the countries which are emerging economies ... their emissions will overtake the emissions of the developed countries, and so climate change would happen to an extreme degree. Not because of old industrialised countries, most of which have already peaked in terms of emissions, particularly those in Western Europe. We would all be overtaken by emissions from other countries, so we all still have the same problem," explained Ruddock.

"So we are trying to persuade developing countries that it's within all of our interests - we have got to see that it [global climate deal] works for all countries," she further stated.

This meant that the more industrialised developing countries, such as South Africa, India China and Brazil, would be required to reduce GHGs to below business as usual levels.

It was clear that gross domestic product growth in developing countries would rise, which in turn meant that emissions would increase, developed countries wanted assurances that these GHG increases would not be to the degree that they would if there was no low-carbon strategy.

"We would like to see some way of recording these offsets. We would like to see that there is some way of making a record of that, so we can see what our responsibilities are and we see that people keep to what they promised. We would like to see them [emerging economies] have low-carbon development plans," stressed Ruddock.

"What is essential is fairness, there has got to be fairness and there have got to be differentiated responsibilities, and so people will reduce to a different extent and in different ways," she confirmed.