Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica on Friday met representatives from Business Unity South Africa (Busa) to clarify the government's greenhouse gas reduction undertaking made to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in January.

Business leaders expressed their commitment to working with government and the Minister in particular to develop a strong national position in respect of reductions from now until the next Conference of the Parties in Mexico at the end of 2010.

The meeting agreed that cooperation would be strengthened through the establishment of a high-level business think-tank that would be available to provide input to ongoing climate change negotiations, which would be supported by a technical team already established by Busa.

South Africa, as agreed to under the Copenhagen Accord, which was the result of the Copenhagen conference in December 2009, submitted its nationally appropriate mitigation actions to the UNFCCC on January 31.

"Although the detailed breakdown of the South African undertaking to the UNFCCC was not discussed, it was agreed that more detailed technical work is essential to ensuring that achievement of the targets will not constrain the economic growth which is essential to the country's future prosperity and the attainment of our developmental goals in particular the need for job creation," said Busa.

Sonjica referred to the need to preserve sufficient carbon space for South Africa's development needs and assured business leaders that government was committed to preserving such space, and that development of detailed mitigation action plans would be undertaken in consultation with all stakeholders.

"Busa welcomes the Minister's open approach to cooperation and pledged business collaboration in the significant research that is required to develop the mitigation action plans as well as the need to understand the business risks if climate change was not addressed," said Busa CEO Jerry Vilakazi.

The importance of considering adaptation needs was also stressed.