Coal-reliant South Africa on Thursday said it was unrealistic to expect developing nations to set targets for cutting harmful carbon emissions as this would hamper economic growth.
In the lead up to the crucial Copenhagen climate summit in December which hopes to thrash out a new climate treaty, Africa's richest state said it is the responsibility of developed countries to reduce emissions.
"We think it is unrealistic for us at this stage to set targets. Setting targets now would definitely hamper growth. Developed nations in our view have a much greater responsibility of reducing their emissions," government spokesman Themba Maseko told journalists after a cabinet meeting.
"They have contributed to emissions for longer than any of the developing nations and their economies have reached a certain level of growth which enable them to actually reduce their emissions, whereas developing nations such as ourselves have quite a lot of way to go in terms of growing our economy."
South Africa relies heavily on coal for its energy requirements, and power giant Eskom is embarking on an ambitious project to build more power stations to fuel the country's growing but energy-strapped economy.
Widespread blackouts last year and regular load-shedding revealed an energy crisis as ailing infrastructure failed to keep pace with growth.
Maseko said the government was committed to reducing emissions over time, and was putting a lot of effort into exploring alternative energy sources and nuclear options, which remained too expensive to provide an alternative to coal.
The continental powerhouse is among the world's worst offenders in terms of gas emissions and joins nations such as India and China in pushing for wealthy, industrialised nations to lead the drive in cutting emissions.
Copenhagen is tasked with finding a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which the United States rejected saying its targets would wreck its economy.
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