Five weeks of "tough" climate change negotiations awaited South Africa's negotiators before the global climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December, and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica remained adamant that South Africa's "responsibilities are different, because our capabilities are different".

She stressed that emission reduction targets were not prescribed for developing countries under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fourth assessment report.

Cabinet said last week that it was not ready to agree to any targets at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Copenhagen that would undermine South Africa's growth trajectory.

"We are acting in line with what is on the table for every developing country," Sonjica said, and added that "at this point we are not in the position of compromising anything".

South Africa was committed to doing its fair share to ensure that the December UNFCCC Copenhagen Climate Change talks produced a deal that would be favourable to both developed and developing countries, Sonjica said.

She maintained that for South Africa, "provided conditionalities are met, we can agree that we will develop in a way that there is a relative reduction in our emissions".

South Africa's current position at the negotiations was to ensure "massively scaled-up, predictable and sustainable financial flows", from the developed nations to the developing world to pay for mitigation and adaptation, explained Environmental Affairs DDG Joanne Yawitch.

An acceptable sum for the developing world was said to be between $200-billion and $400-billion a year until 2020.

South Africa said that the funding could be mobilised from multiple sources, including major public sector financing including assessed contribution, carbon markets, bilateral agreements, and the private sector.

"We expect money. We need money to be made available... we need money as of yesterday for adaptation and mitigation," emphasised Sonjica, when speaking of South Africa's expectations coming out of the negotiations.

Yawitch added that there were still "quite big gaps" which existed in the negotiating texts and said that the Kyoto Protocol commitments were low and needed to be increased, the financial instruments and commitments needed a lot of work, and the issue of the US and how it would be involved in the process was yet to be revealed.

South Africa also wanted to see bold commitments from the US, which Sonjica said were currently still missing.

Two further UNFCCC negotiating sessions would be held before Copenhagen, and these were on September 28 to October 9, in Bangkok, and November 2 to November 6, in Barcelona.

Sonjica was addressing journalists before her departure to the Major Economies Forum (MEF) in Washington, on Thursday and Friday, where leaders were expected to expand on their climate change commitment made at the previous MEF in L'Aquila, to keep global warming below the 2 ºC target.

In addition to these meetings, there was the Alliance Of Small Island States meeting, in New York on September 21, where climate change would top the agenda. This was followed by the United Nations Climate Summit on September 22, also in New York. This was then followed by the Group of 20 Summit, in Pittsburgh, at the end of the month.

Sonjica said that South Africa would, over the long term, redefine its competitive advantage and structurally transform the economy by shifting from an energy-intensive, to a climate friendly path, as part of a pro-growth, pro-development, and pro-jobs strategy.

She did, however, add that the only way for South Africa to realistically deal with its immediate energy supply problem, apart from demand-side management, was "through the building of carbon efficient coal technology, in the medium term".

"The situation we find ourselves in is not a simple matter of ensuring energy access and security via renewables, but rather more complex, which would mean a continued use of fossil fuels in the short to medium term, while at the same time we make a gradual shift to non-fossil fuel energy sources over a longer term."

She said that the issue for developing countries like South Africa was not only one of energy security, but energy access as well. "The greatest challenge being faced, is how to ensure energy security and access, while not negatively impacting our developmental imperatives, and at the same time laying the foundation towards a path of low carbon growth."

She added that South Africa had ambitions to peak emissions between 2020 and 2025, stabilise them for ten years, and then decrease emissions in absolute terms by 2050, this was articulated in the Long Term Mitigation Strategy (LTMS).

Yawitch clarified that the ambition to peak emissions by the 2020 to 2025 period, had taken into account the construction of the coal-fired power plants of Medupi, Kusile, and Sasol's new coal-to-liquids plant Mafutha, as well as new refineries, and expansions, and increasing vehicular transport.

Those that drew up the LTMS looked at various mitigation options, and how use these to deviate form trajectory, and said that this could indeed be done, but would require financing from international community.