Commonwealth heads champion climate fund

He said that over the past few days “things have started to shift (and] we have entered into a very active negotiation phase”.

Trinidad’s Prime Minister Patrick Manning, who chaired the CHOGM, said that the Port of Spain declaration was as a result of the concerns of Commonwealth leaders that “the objectives which we set for ourselves as a world could be achieved at Copenhagen”.

“I am very pleased to say that the Commonwealth heads of government meeting here in Port of Spain ...have come to a conclusion on this matter,” he said, describing the event as “a significant success”. Sharma said that he was pleased with the commitment of Commonwealth countries on climate change.

In their Port of Spain consensus, the Commonwealth leaders welcomed Britain’s offer of a proposed Copenhagen Launch Fund starting next year “to a level of resources of 10 billion dollars annually by 2012”.

They said that the fast start fund for adaptation should be focused on the most vulnerable countries, and also welcomed a proposal to provide “immediate fast disbursing assistance with a dedicated system for small island states and associated low-lying coastal states of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) of at least 10 per cent of the fund”.

“We also recognise the need for further, specified and comparable funding streams, to assist the poorest and most vulnerable countries, to cope with, and adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. We recognise that funding will be scaled up beyond 2012,” the leaders said.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said that the fund represents a “bottom line to getting an agreement” on climate change in Copenhagen and promised that Wellington will provide 10 to 50 million dollars to the fund.

“The reality of climate change is that there will be a lot of movement to help islands affected by climate change,” Key said. But Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo says the proposed fund must be viewed as interim financing for climate change issues.

“We must not lose sight of the main financing proposal,” he told a news conference, adding that studies have shown that it would take about one percent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), estimated at 300 billion dollars, to fully provide adaptation, mitigation and technology transfer related to the impacts of climate change.

“We prefer to see this as interim financing pending the expiration of the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol but without losing sight of the larger sums that it would take to address the significant issues of adaptation, mitigation and technology transfer,” Jagdeo said.

He noted that that the World Bank has estimated the adaptation needs of AOSIS at between 75 and 80 billion dollars per year, “and we are (here) talking about ten billion”.

He said he expected some of the financing from the fund will support mitigation options, including interim financing for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), which Guyana and other rainforest countries are pursuing, and the work done by the Informal Working Group set up after the G20 meeting in London in April this year.

Keeping up drive

Sarkozy said if world leaders are able to establish a World Environment Organisation, it would function as a United Nations agency and as a result there would be a guarantee to all countries that there would not be a different approach towards climate change issues.

“It will be a UN agency that would evaluate the assessment of the achievement of every country and we would hold countries to its commitment because after Copenhagen the question will arise as to who is going oversee and who is going to implement the Copenhagen commitments, logically it should be the World Environment Organisation,” he said.