With the post-Kyoto climate change talks due to take place in Copenhagen in December, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel spoke to Mandy Rossouw about South Africa’s key role in the negotiations
What is South Africa’s importance in the Copenhagen process?
South Africa is in a leading position in the Group 77 [of industrialising countries] plus China.
Your environment minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, is a tough negotiator. I know this because I had to negotiate nights and nights with him. He has the capabilities necessary for progress.
You need negotiators who are able and willing to see the problem through the eyes of the other side. It’s better to have a tough negotiator where it’s clear he knows what he’s talking about.
It’s about who is able to stand firm, rather than just being there and phoning your capital to ask whether you should raise your hand.
Climate change is not high on South Africa’s political agenda. How can this change?
Countries like South Africa should know that economic development and climate protection can be combined. And South Africa is one of the countries that may be able to show that investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy can be advantageous.
Germany has the technology to use solar power, but we have only 800 hours of sun every year. Africa can use solar power more successfully and it can exchange solar and wind power with neighbouring states.
Only 10 months remain before Copenhagen and there are many outstanding issues. Shouldn’t the talks be postponed?
We need the time pressure. It must be like when they choose a pope — they must lock the door, leave us with only bread and water and let us out only once the smoke goes up ÂÂ- once there’s a deal.
We’ve made progress, but not enough. To be very frank, without the commitment of industrialised countries to adaptation and technology transfer, developing countries have no funding, only institutions with no money.
What was the purpose of your visit here?
On the one hand to meet my colleague Marthinus van Schalkwyk. He invited me, as we both know this is an important year for the climate negotiations.
On the other hand, I’ve been invited to visit a research institute to explore the link between climate change and biodiversity. South Africa is one of the most biodiverse countries on the planet and Germany currently holds the presidency of the convention on biodiversity.
One of the important issues we must negotiate now [for the convention] is the right of the biodiverse countries to share the benefit of indigenous knowledge used by industrialised states.
Sometimes indigenous people have know-ledge about plants which business people use while the local people see no benefit. We want to organise a legal framework for everyone to share the benefit. It’s a question of fairness.
Should the Copenhagen convention include carbon emission targets for developing countries?
We [the industrialised countries] are responsible for adaptation that’s historical. Science says that developing countries will be responsible for between 25% and 40% of universal carbon emissions in 2020 if we don’t have real success in our battle against climate change. Germany has agreed to cut carbon emissions by 40% by 2020 because longer-term targets do not work. Every politician is happy to say ”let’s have long-term targets which our children and grandchildren must meet”.
If you can’t reduce emissions now, you won’t be able to reduce them by between 60% and 80% by 2050.
Won’t a 40% reduction come at the cost of economic development and jobs?
We can reach it if we’re willing to invest in renewable energy, which will create new jobs. In Germany we have 250 000 new jobs in the field of renewable energy and we want to double that by 2020. The lesson we learned is that investment in climate protection does not work against economic development and success.
The German policy of feed-in tariffs [incentives for the public to generate energy and sell it to the grid] is a great success story. Did it meet political resistance at first?
Today you only find fathers and mothers of feed-in tariffs — success has many fathers and mothers. Even [Chancellor Angela] Merkel voted against feed-in tariffs for about 10 years. We had a political struggle.