South African President Jacob Zuma on Saturday endorsed the establishment of the South African Renewables Initiative (SARI) on the sidelines of COP17, or the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) taking place in Durban.

"South Africa has an ambitious renewable energy plan and is promoting investments in the fields of renewable energy, marine aquaculture development, wildlife management, waste services as well as ecosystem rehabilitation programmes to name just a few," he told global business leaders at the opening the World Climate Business Summit in Durban.

Zuma noted that South Africa will soon announce the results of the bidding process for the first 3.725 megawatts of green energy to be procured under our Renewable Energy Flagship Program. " South Africa plans to scale this up to at least 18 Gigawatts, to account for 42 percent of new capacity being commissioned."

However, he cautioned: "The biggest barriers to developing renewable energy in Africa to date are not technological, but financial. In that regard", he continued, "South Africa has been hard at work in the development and design of financial instruments aligned to our national plans for green growth."

"During the course of COP 17 we will be launching a key initiative that could kick-start major development for renewable energy generation and industrial development. The South African Renewable Initiative (SARI) funding mechanism will help us unlock South Africa's green growth potential through the funding of large- scale renewable developments. This will be achieved with the assistance of global partners - donors and governments, who will provide innovative funding solutions to facilitate it."

Zuma explained that renewable energy still costs more than non- renewable energy, which in South Africa is largely supplied by cheap, abundant coal supplies. It is estimated that the renewables ' targets indicated in the country's Integrated Resource Plan 2010 would add an average incremental cost of around 660 million U. S. dollars to South Africa's annual electricity bill up to the year 2044. "The SARI model will enable us to deal with the high cost through low cost loans and other financial instruments combined with time limited pay-for-performance grants," Zuma said.

On the eve of the Climate Change Summit held in Copenhagen in 2009, Zuma announced South Africa's commitment to reducing its carbon emissions by 34 percent by 2020 and by 42 percent by 2025.

Zuma noted, however, that "we are not waiting for an agreement in Durban before achieving green, sustainable and inclusive growth. We are forging ahead with our programme of greening the economy to improve the economic, social and environmental resilience of the country in the face of climate change."