The Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) played a pivotal role in raising the profile of Cape Town and the Western Cape as a sustainable meetings and events destination, said CEO, Rashid Toefy.
 
Delivering CTICC's 2009/10 annual financial results at a media briefing in Cape Town, he said a key focus was to attract more environmentally sustainable events to Cape Town such as the 17th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 17) taking place at the end of next year.
 
South Africa has already won the bid to host the event, with Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town squaring up to be host city. UNFCCC officials are expected to inspect the prospective host city on October 18 before an announcement is made.
 
COP 17 will attract 30 000 international delegates, including heads of state and NGOs from around the world.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Cape Town’s bid patron, suggested a "new deal" to replace the Kyoto Protocol that expired in 2012 could be signed on Robben Island, with all its symbolism regarding the struggle for justice.
 
The bid for Cape Town is led by the City of Cape Town and a ‘Coalition for Climate Change’, representatives of which include the provincial government, CTICC, CTRU, Cape Town Convention Bureau, the Cape Town Partnership, Accelerate Cape Town, Wesgro, the Cape Chamber of Commerce and tertiary academic institutions.
 
“Cape Town was the first city in Africa to develop an integrated environmental policy and has for some years led the way in Africa with regard to sustainability," commented Alderman Felicity Purchase, the city’s mayoral committee member for economic development and tourism. "The city has a dedicated committee on energy and climate change that has completed a study to identify the carbon footprint of hosting the event and identified what is needed to make it a carbon-neutral event. Cape Town strongly supports the national climate change strategy and will do whatever it can to support the national process."