Cape Town – National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel has been elected as one of the three co-chairman of the Transitional Committee for the design of the Green Climate Change Fund.
He joined two other chairs, Mexican Minister of Finance and Public Credit Ernesto Cordero Arroyo and Kjetil Lund of Norway’s Ministry of Finance.
Manuel, who made the announcement to the media earlier today, said his appointment happened in Mexico on Thursday night in his absence.
He said that the Transitional Committee comprised 40 United Nations representatives and reported to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The committee had three tasks which were to design the “governance arrangements of a Green Climate Fund, mobilizing resources for this fund and setting out the modalities of spending these resources”.
The minister said that the committee would have to finish its obligations before the November COP 17 Climate Change meeting set for Durban.
The committee was likely to have at least four meetings leading to the COP 17 meeting.
He said that Green Climate Fund, which would be financed through carbon pricing, would be used to mitigate deforestation and open up new agricultural land in Africa among other things
The minister said that climate change issues were not for scientists alone, and more debate was needed around the matter in South Africa. – Francis Hweshe, BuaNews
