Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It's a good feeling to see you again. We had memorable times and difficult ones in our interactions in our previous financial year. We appreciate your interest in environmental issues and keeping us on our toes to ensure we implement everything we pledge. We perceive the media's role of oversight as an extension of parliament and that makes you critical stakeholders for service delivery. We are meeting today to begin another long journey for our future together.

One of the achievements for the past financial year was the hosting and participating in the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 7th Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, in Durban. It is now an open secret that the final outcome was historic and precedent setting.

The agreement reached in Durban not only significantly advances the global effort needed now to address the global climate change crisis; but also sets a new long-term pathway for the development of a fair, ambitious and legally binding future multi-lateral and rules-based global climate change system which can balance climate and development imperatives.

Following the approval of our Climate Change Response Policy, our priority for this year is to co-ordinate a process to define South Africa’s desired emission reduction outcomes, based on an in-depth assessment of mitigation potential in key sectors, as well as an analysis of the mitigation contributions that each sector can make to the national and global effort.

We will also initiate a process to develop long term adaptation scenarios, to evaluate how changes in the climate may affect key climate - sensitive sectors, such as water, agriculture, forestry and biodiversity in South Africa, and identify adaptation strategies to prevent the undesirable consequences of climate change, and thereby increase South Africa’s resilience to climate change.

Sustainable development and the road to Rio

Our country will participate in the upcoming Rio+20 conference to deliberate on and take decisions on using natural resources in a sustainable manner that will ensure we reshape the sustainable development architecture to better respond to this challenge and the emerging multiple financial and economic crises which are becoming increasingly urgent.

Our Rio stance is anchored on strategic objective of ensuring that sustainable development remains central in our planning and execution and this was further enhanced last year, with the approval by Cabinet last year of the National Strategy on Sustainable Development, the NSSD. The NSSD sets out the country’s sustainable development priorities and actions over the next five years and puts us on a solid policy platform. Whilst Rio plus 20 will review implementation of sustainable development over the past 20 years, it will also be used as a platform to address emerging challenges in implementing sustainable development such as green economy over the next 20 years.

The Green Economy and Jobs

The South African government has identified the green economy as one of the key elements in the new growth path as well as in the industrial policy action plan. It is incumbent upon us to debunk the myth that environment management hinders development, by positioning the sector as a major contributor to job creation and the fight against poverty.

The transformation of our industries towards the building of a green economy has many facet