The business community has an important part to play in the fight against climate change, United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon said at a press briefing on Tuesday evening.

He supported this statement in his address at the opening of the high-level Ministerial negotiations at the seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP 17) in Durban.

Ban told delegates that governments, cities, businesses and individuals had recognised the threat of climate change.

“They are acting. They are choosing a lower-carbon path because they know it is good for the planet – and good for them, good for us. Governments and the private sector are combining to create a vision for sustainable energy for all – a win-win for poverty reduction, economic growth and cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.”

Ban called for advances in all areas of negotiations, stressing the importance of “continued momentum” to make tangible progress on key issues being discussed at the climate change talks.

“The world and its people cannot accept ‘no’ for an answer in Durban,” he said.

Ban highlighted key issues that had to be resolved at COP 17, including implementing agreements from last year’s climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. This would enable the adaptation framework and its committee, as well as the technology mechanism and its climate technology centre to start work as soon as possible.

He also called for smart investment in a sustainable future, hence tangible progress on short- and long-term financing.

Short-term financing had to be fast tracked. Ban said $30-billion had been pledged, and almost all of it had been identified in national Budgets. “However, recipient countries want to see greater transparency in how the funds are allocated and disbursed.”

With long-term financing, he requested the mobilisation of the $100-billion a year by 2020 Green Climate Fund from the private sector, government and innovative new sources.

“I appeal to industrialised nations to inject sufficient initial capital to allow the fund to begin its work immediately.”

In the absence of a global binding agreement, he said the Kyoto Protocol was the closest one.

Ban urged careful consideration of a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, with the first commitment coming to an end in December 2012.

“While Kyoto will alone not solve today’s climate problem, it is the foundation to build one with important institutions. It provides the framework for markets sorely needed - carbon pricing, carbon trading depends on a rule-based system. It is important we do not create a vacuum.”

Lastly, he said the world should not forsake a collective vision of a comprehensive, binding climate change agreement that was both effective and fair to all.

“In Durban, we must take concrete steps towards a more robust climate regime, steps that will carry momentum to next year’s COP in Qatar.”

These expectations becoming operational, or on track to becoming operational, as in a legally binding agreement, were “necessary to realise an equitable future”.

Ban urged leaders to demonstrate political will and to look beyond domestic, national and economic challenges. “You need a common vision and a common goal to solve climate change.”