Valletta (Malta): Commonwealth leaders have agreed to set up a climate change hub to facilitate access to funds for the small and poor countries, a decision which is in sync with India’s demand for providing adequate financial resources to developing nations to reduce green house gas emissions.
The decision to set up the hub by Commonwealth, a bloc of 53 countries, came days before world leaders meet at the crucial climate change summit in Paris eyeing an ambitious goal of significantly limiting global warming.
Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma said the leaders have also decided to set up a new mechanism to help poor countries manage debt accrued on climate management. He said nitty-gritties of the new set up was still being worked out. He said various island nations and small countries were facing difficulty in securing financial support to bring down green house gas emissions and the hub will provide funds to them.
“These small states are often told about money but none of them know number to dial,” Sharma, the outgoing secretary general, said adding hub will make “climate finance, a reality”. Around 30 heads of state and government including Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif participated at the Commonwealth summit which discussed ways to combat terrorism besides tackling climate change.
India was represented at the summit by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. The session on climate change was attended by UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon and French President Francois Hollande who said despite the terrible terror attack in Paris, he wanted to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to discuss climate change considering seriousness of the issue. Hoping that a universal agreement would be reached at Paris conference, he said a couple of countries may pose hurdles in achieving the goal as they feel some of the obligations can block their development.
The French President, however, did not name the countries he was reffering to. “Man is man’s worst enemy. We have seen this with terrorism and we have seen it also with climate,” he said. India had forcefully articulated its concerns of the developing countries in finalising a policy statement of Commonwealth countries in dealing with climate change which is likely to have an impact in negotiations.
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