Africa is concerned about the slow disbursement of the financial resources pledged by countries as “fast-start" finance, and has urged developed nations to honour their commitments, speaker of South Africa’s National Assembly, Max Sisulu, said this week at an Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) meeting.

Africa wants climate finance to be predictable, sustainable, adequate and additional to the development aid it currently received.

“We have also called for the Green Climate Fund to be implemented as a matter of urgency. The developed world must remember that a promise made is a promise kept,” Sisulu said.

Africa has called on developed countries to show leadership by raising their level of ambition to a scale required by science and equity.

In light of the uncertainty surrounding the second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, with the first commitment period ending in December 2012, Sisulu believed that the reluctance of developed countries to honour their mitigation commitments for a second and subsequent commitment period was “disappointing and very worrying”.

“The Africa position has stressed the urgency for a second commitment period to avoid any gaps between commitment periods. The world cannot be held hostage by a handful of countries and we must move forward with speed,” he stressed.

Parliamentarians from across the world have adopted a Declaration on Climate Change, which would be conveyed at the seventeenth Conference of the Parties, or COP 17, this week.

Addressing the IPU meeting, organised jointly by the South African Parliament and the IPU, Sisulu said members of Parliaments had to influence climate change outcomes to ensure these were in the interests of the people they served.

“The voices of Parliamentarians as the representatives of the people we serve are the strongest voices of persuasion at local, national, regional and international level. We must use this leverage to bring about positive action and positive change. As Parliamentarians we must ensure that we are the centre of the dialogue on climate change at all times.”

The declaration reiterates that a transparent and open multilateral process under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was the only forum for negotiations on climate change, and that it was necessary to ensure that the interests of the developing countries, in particular, the most vulnerable, were protected.

It reaffirmed the urgent need to support developing countries in their adaptation efforts, particularly the most vulnerable of the small island developing States, the least developed countries and countries in Africa.

The declaration also called for Parties to prioritise disaster risk reduction and capacity-building as cross-cutting issues and to give the matter their utmost attention.

Further, it urged for the mobilisation of financial resources and transfer of technology by developed country Parties as per their commitment under the UNFCCC to deal with climate change and that governance issues and institutional arrangements be dealt with transparently and efficiently, ensuring accessibility and an equal footing for developed and developing countries in the governance and administration of climate funds and technology flows.

It also reaffirmed the belief that Parliaments should be granted an appropriate status at the UNFCCC negotiations process, undertook to campaign for the attainment of this objective, and resolved to enhance Parliaments’ oversight of government action and commitments relating to climate change negotiations and to advance peer support to those Parliaments that are less able to fulfill their oversight functions.