Commonwealth applauds global climate change agreement

Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma has welcomed last weekend’s historic Paris Climate Change Conference (COP21) agreement to limit global emissions well below 2 degrees Celsius, with an aspiration of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Agreed by 195 countries following two weeks of negotiations, the deal also provides for regular reviews of ambition and finance to poor countries to help them cut emissions, develop sustainably and recover from climate-related disasters.

“Climate change is having a catastrophic impact on the most vulnerable Commonwealth countries, especially small states. Apart from the development gains regularly and massively lost, there is a clear ethical and moral imperative to help build their resilience as the contribution of these states to the global carbon footprint is minimal, while they are visited by the worst consequences of global warming,” Mr Sharma said in Paris last Tuesday.

Days before the start of COP21, Commonwealth Heads of Government met in Malta for a special session on climate change, where they endorsed a Leaders’ Statement on Climate Action calling for a robust, ambitious and balanced agreement that could be implemented by all.

“The world watched as the Commonwealth, representing a template of global interests and diversity, committed to action to redress the impacts of climate change. What happened in Malta was a precursor to the larger meeting in Paris,” Mr Sharma said.

The Commonwealth has long been at the forefront of global action on climate change, and it represents more than one quarter of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  Twenty seven years ago – and three years before the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 – Commonwealth leaders signed the Langkawi Declaration on the Environment which for the first time collectively cited the greenhouse effect as one of the main environmental problems facing the world. The Declaration recognised threats to islands and low-lying coastal states of sea level rise and other climate change perils through global warming.

In November 2009, on the eve of the

In 2013 an expert group report to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, put forward recommendations on how best to access existing financial resources to support low-emission and climate-resilient development in small and climate-vulnerable states. It spawned a number of Commonwealth initiatives including a Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, announced at the recently-concluded CHOGM in Malta.

The Commonwealth has also been instrumental in advancing a ‘debt for climate action swap’ proposal to assist with resource mobilisation for climate action to address the dual challenges facing many small and climate vulnerable developing countries: a lack of climate finance flowing to countries who need it most and crippling debt burdens, which are adversely affecting their ability to invest in adaptation and mitigation.

The Commonwealth Multilateral Debt Swap for Climate Action proposes an exchange for investments in climate adaption and mitigation projects, in which the most vulnerable states would have their multilateral debt written down using existing sources of climate finance. International traction is being secured and the Commonwealth is working hard to turn this practical and innovative idea into action. Indeed, the proposal has been endorsed by the United Nations Secretary-General and we are working with the UN system and our member states to advance the idea.

The 2015 CHOGM also saw developed Commonwealth countries reaffirm their commitment to help mobilise US$100 billion annually by 2020 to address the adaptation and mitigation needs of developing countries. At the Special Session on Climate Change, French President François Hollande and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed support for the Commonwealth’s Heads of Governments’ efforts on climate change. Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, the summit chair, said at the close of CHOGM:  "The fact that we have achieved convergence and near unanimity on a very focused statement on climate change puts the possibility of a success at COP21 in better shape.”

The Paris Agreement has been hailed as a ‘breakthrough’ - and the ‘world’s greatest diplomatic success’. The Commonwealth will continue to make its position clear and deliver practical and policy solutions to the complex problem of climate change. In the words of our Secretary-General: “Global warming is one of the greatest injustices of our time.”