Operating in a "carbon-constrained world" brought up issues of innovation and competitiveness that business in South Africa would need to recognise and decide how it would be involved.

"I believe that the window is open for the South African economy to get in on things that will change the energy economy worldwide," stated Department of Environmental Affairs deputy director-general Joanne Yawitch.

Speaking at the University of South Africa Press trialogue panel discussion in Midrand on Wednesday, Yawitch said there was much more climate change awareness after the Copenhagen conference, forcing companies to build climate issues into their business plans.

She added that while business in South Africa had done fairly well at looking into reducing emissions, a lot more attention needed to be given to adaptation, as the risks to business were significant.

Indeed, Webber Wentzel Attorneys partner Johan Scholtz emphasised that companies that take climate action early, would be best placed to take advantage of the opportunities and protect themselves from the negative aspects of climate change. He highlighted the myriad of climate-related risks facing corporations, including: operational delay risks; regulatory; tax; reputational; insurance; and litigation risks.

It was also highlighted that there was a need for climate change collaboration among business in South Africa, and that the first step toward this was for individual companies to gather data to know and understand their greenhouse gas emissions profile.

"This gives companies bargaining power," explained SouthSouthNorth CEO Stefan Raubenheimer, who was addressing participants gathering at a Copenhagen de-brief seminar hosted by Webber Wentzel Attorneys.

Raubenheimer added that if a company calculated its future demand and emissions profile, it would be aware of its ability for emission reduction, and would be able to tell government what it could achieve and what would be impossible to attain.

Knowing exactly what mitigations were feasible, companies could reduce their carbon footprint in-house as much as possible, and identify where they might have to invest in emission-reduction and renewable energy projects outside of the company.

South Africa has indicated to the international community that it would take on greenhouse gas mitigation actions that would reduce emissions by 34% below the business as usual trajectory by 2020, and 42% below that by 2025. This was reliant on funding, technology transfer and capacity building assistance from the developed nations.

Yawitch explained that the significance of this pledge is that South Africa has said: "In the future, we see ourselves bearing a responsibility for our emissions and trying to reduce them."

She said that it was a national ambition and did not mean that every company in South Africa would need to reduce its emissions by 34% by 2020.

Yawitch again reiterated that the pledge hinged on support from industrialised nations and considered elements such as the government's renewable energy targets, energy efficiency targets, the rollout of one-millions solar water heaters and using the Clean Technology Fund to build a 100-MW concentrated solar power plant and a 100-MW wind plant. Should targets such as these be met, it was envisaged that South Africa would be well on its way to meeting the 34% target.