Discussions on the Technology Mechanism can hopefully be completed in Durban so that it can begin benefitting people as of next year, a South African minister said on Wednesday as the UN climate change conference is underway.

COP 17 President Maite Nkoana-Mashabane speaks during a press conference with Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Christiana Figueres (L) at the Conference of the Parties (COP17) of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, November 30, 2011. [Agencies]

The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (CMP7) are proceeding well from an organisation, President of the COP17/ CMP7 Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and also the South African Minister of International relations and Cooperation said.

"I have held extensive formal and informal consultations with Parties in various settings prior to the commencement of this important conference," Mashabane said in a press briefing in the third day of the convention.

She told the media that for the Technology Mechanism, the focus is now on the "how and what" of who will host the Climate Technology Centre and Network.

Technology Mechanism, under the guidance of and accountable to the Conference of the Parties (COP), was established by the 16th session of the COP in Cancun in 2010. It is expected to facilitate the implementation of enhanced action on technology development and transfer in order to support action on mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

The Durban conference is expected to take two central, decisive steps to make the world more climate-resilient and to put it on a low-carbon path, namely answering the very important question of the future of the Kyoto Protocol and completing what was agreed last year at the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun.

"I am pleased to report that this week, clear progress is being made on the institutions that were agreed in Cancun," Mashabane said.

But the Business Day newspaper in Johannesburg reported earlier that battle lines have been drawn between developed and developing countries at the talks in Durban, as the two groups squared off over the future of the Kyoto Protocol and the level of emission cuts required averting dangerous climate change.