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REUTERS<\/p>\n
UN security personnel escort US youth delegate Abigail Borah from the International Convention Centre yesterday after she disrupted a speech by the US envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, during the climate change summit in Durban. \tPicture: REUTERS<\/p>\n
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Leanne Jansen <\/p>\n
leanne.jansen@inl.co.za <\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2018We all share the frustration\u2026 I believe some people have a vested interest in not making any progress. We should send them to a corner of the classroom and continue to work on the negotiations so we can all pass the exam that is required by future generations,\u201d Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, chairman of the African Group at COP17, said yesterday, prompting a flurry of questions on who was to blame for impeding progress at the talks. <\/p>\n Mpanu Mpanu made the remarks at a press briefing, responding to sentiments that those who were not in the know were becoming desperately frustrated wondering what was going on inside the negotiating rooms. <\/p>\n Despite refusing to name and shame, the chairman said: \u201cYou also have some countries next year that have elections, and they are very careful about what\u2019s going to happen here, because if the outcome here is too ambitious, then they\u2019re going to have to live up to that outcome and, unfortunately, the opposition they face may use that outcome to say: \u2018Look at the administration \u2013 they\u2019re contributing to this international thing when China doesn\u2019t have any obligations. Come on, they want to spend taxpayers\u2019 money on that, and this is not good.\u2019 So, unfortunately, some countries maybe are not willing to move. And I\u2019m not naming names \u2013 I\u2019m just saying the facts like they are.\u201d <\/p>\n US President Barack Obama is hoping be win a second term in office next year. <\/p>\n \n <\/span><\/p>\n The Africa Group is focused on two priorities: the Kyoto protocol and finance for adaptation, and they believe they have \u201cjustice\u201d and \u201clarge numbers\u201d on their side. <\/p>\n Quizzed about sources of funding for the Green Climate Fund, Mpanu Mpanu affirmed that Africa\u2019s overriding priority was adaptation. \u201c(It) will not be funded by private companies who have to report to investors. So that\u2019s why, of course, it\u2019s important that part of the resources are from public funds. But we need to go with a step-wise approach, one fight at a time. Let us first ensure that we have this Green Climate Fund operationalised, and then we may be able to look at some of the sources. Every day, there are billions of financial transactions taking place, so why not give a small percentage of those proceeds to the fund? Would that create a Wall Street meltdown? I don\u2019t think so.\u201d <\/p>\n With the stakes high on the second-last day of the talks, Mpanu Mpanu was also asked how helpful SA had been in championing the African continent\u2019s cause. <\/p>\n \u201cRegarding the difficulty of South Africa, South Africa is doing a little bit of a balancing act, it is true,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n He added that it was \u201cvery hard\u201d to find the middle ground among so many countries. However, the hosts were \u201cvery mindful\u201d of the needs of Africa and other developing countries, and the Africa Group had \u201ctrust in them\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" REUTERS UN security personnel escort US youth delegate Abigail Borah from the International Convention Centre yesterday after she disrupted a speech by the US envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, during the climate change summit in Durban. Picture: REUTERS Leanne Jansen leanne.jansen@inl.co.za \u2018We all share the frustration\u2026 I believe some people have a vested interest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-5971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"nm](\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/0f6f6_2063192946.jpg\")
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