Greenpeace activists today draped banners over the statues of South African leaders to ask President Jacob Zuma to take leadership at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December. Spokesperson Fiona Musana said activists draped the statue of former President Nelson Mandela in Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton with a message : "Zuma go to Copenhagen and ensure a fair deal is made".

The statues of Mahatma Ghandi in Pietermaritzburg was draped with a message: "Join the energy (R)evolution", while a banner on the statue of Cecil John Rhodes in Cape Town read: "The future is solar".

Musana said this was part of Greenpeace's call for active leadership as part of their global day of action. She said millions of people in over 170 countries were demanding a "fair, ambitious and binding deal to prevent catastrophic climate change".

"Developed countries must create trust and demonstrate their leadership by both committing to deep emissions reductions domestically and providing a substantial amount of financing and technology for developing country mitigation and adaptation," said Musana in a statement.

Agnes de Rooij, a climate campaigner at Greenpeace said: "The planet cannot afford another delay. World leaders need to take personal responsibility for the success of the Copenhagen Climate summit and agree to a legally binding protocol that will shift economies towards low carbon development." She said Copenhagen is the marker of climate success or climate failure, not a marker on the way to more meetings about meetings.

Musana said while South Africa is one of the only developing countries that has a long-term climate strategy that seeks a peak in emissions and a decline thereafter, which is what the latest science demands in order to avoid dangerous climate change. "However their strategy is based on expensive, unproven and unsustainable technologies such as CO2 dumping (Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS) and nuclear energy and does not put any measures into place to stimulate a massive upscale in renewable energy and energy efficiency."

Michelle Ndiaye Ntab, Greenpeace Africa executive director said:  "The call for strong African leadership in Copenhagen should be matched with a clear commitment at the domestic level, particularly for South Africa to end its reliance on coal. "The South African government needs to clean up its act at home and put in place effective policies to make a just transition to a sustainable energy system for green job creation." - Sapa