Business Unity SA will support the need to address climate change — but not at the expense of halving poverty and unemployment by 2014, it said on Tuesday.

"... the achievement of the national imperatives of halving poverty and unemployment by 2014 must not be undermined and any policy interventions particularly in the area of industrial policy must be evaluated against the long term effect on employment and poverty," Busa said.

The organisation accepted that climate change was a major global challenge that needed to be addressed and that failure at a global level to address this challenge would ultimately have negative impacts on South Africa's socio-economic situation.

"It is therefore imperative that South Africa as one of the top twenty greenhouse gas emitting countries based on per capita emissions plays its role internationally."

Busa said it believed that overall a policy basis existed to develop the bold set of actions that was required to address the challenge of climate change — while at the same time ensuring achievement of national socio-economic objectives.

Busa was presently engaged in a number of forums with government and Eskom to achieve electricity savings in all sectors of the economy.

It had called on its membership to participate vigorously in debate around instruments which promote cost effective carbon reduction, develop company and sector level greenhouse gas inventories for inclusion in the national inventory, and to explore every avenue of energy efficiency in the workplace.

"Busa remains committed to working constructively with government and other stakeholders to develop and implement the necessary action plans in a manner that achieves not only climate change mitigation objectives but also the national imperatives of economic growth, employment creation and eradication of poverty."

Sapa

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