The construction of State-owned power utility Eskom’s Medupi and Kusile power stations should not be interpreted as South Africa backing away from its greenhouse-gas emission reduction targets or the transition to a low-carbon economy, Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa said on Tuesday.

Speaking at the WWF South Africa and National Business Initiative pre-COP 17 summit, in Johannesburg, the Minister said the country simply “could not do without coal”, but stressed that the focus would have to be on clean coal technologies.

Molewa also noted that renewable energy featured strongly in the future energy mix of the country.

South Africa committed to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 34% below business as usual by 2020 and 43% by 2025.

Meanwhile, the seventeenth Conference of the Parties, or COP 17, conference would be a “heavy responsibility” requiring urgency and determination in dealing with the global threat of climate change.

Molewa said it would be a difficult task to ensure that the international negotiations stayed on track, and that the world continued to pursue a global solution to the climate change challenge.

Key to COP 17 would be sealing a deal on measurement, reporting and verification, including the means of implementation to provide enhanced financial, technological and capacity-building support for mitigation actions of developing countries.

“While every country will have to develop its own adaptive responses to the effects of climate change, effectively mitigating climate change to ensure the disruption caused to human and natural systems is within manageable parameters can only be achieved through a concerted and coherent global response,” the Minister stated.

Molewa also called for the continuation of working towards the clarification of the legal form of the envisaged binding outcomes, recognising that a global regime depended on making progress on aspects reached in agreement already.

South Africa seeks a global regime that ensures that climate change does not reach dangerous levels, while recognising that the priority for developing countries is to address poverty and promote socioeconomic development.

A key deliverable from Durban would be an outcome committing to a regime with modalities for fair contribution to the global effort to stabilise greenhouse-gas concentrations within a timeframe that enables economic, social and environmental development to proceed in a sustainable manner.