– Jagdeo tells Commonwealth heads
Former President, Bharrat Jagdeo last week again warned global leaders of the serious threats of climate change as he presented a report on the phenomenon at the just- concluded Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma back in June this year had appointed Jagdeo to lead a high-level team of experts to identify solutions to enable small, poor and climate-vulnerable Commonwealth countries to fight climate change. Jagdeo has been joined by eight others to lobby the international community to help identify practical solutions for those countries most at risk from climate change.
The group will tackle how best to access resources to support low-emission and climate-resilient development in small and climate-vulnerable states. The secretary general had said then that the Commonwealth Expert Group on Climate Finance, convened under his Good Offices for the Environment, would have tabled their report to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka which was done Friday last.
The former president, as a special guest of the Commonwealth secretary general, was invited to Colombo to update leaders on the outcomes of the work carried out by the Commonwealth expert group, which he chaired.
Grave threat
Heads of government welcomed the report in their communiqué, while agreeing to progress consideration of its recommendations and requesting that it be disseminated and discussed at the United Nations climate change meetings.
All leaders recognised that climate change is a grave threat to members of the Commonwealth, while at the closing press conference, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Rasak, and the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma both highlighted how the Commonwealth could provide global leaders on climate change, as set out in the report.
Speaking after the meeting, former President Jagdeo said: “Every Head of Government I meet knows what the science is telling us. They know the seriousness of a 3.6 or 4 degree rise in temperature, and they know that this could undermine decades of development. Most also know that investing in a shift to a low carbon economy today will save lots of money in the future. But what is still missing is the critical mass of international political will that can take the tough decisions needed to enable the developing world to achieve its low carbon potential – and without this, the world cannot avert catastrophic climate change, or deal with its consequences.
“Our report sought to identify practical steps that could make a difference now, alongside highlighting the huge importance of political leadership from Heads of Government between now and 2015, when all the countries of the world have agreed to seal a global climate deal.”
The report produced by the Expert Group presented five proposals, and recognised that Commonwealth developing countries are “seeking to lead the world towards a more sustainable future by creating low carbon development pathways, adaption to climate change and protecting their societies and impacts from its impacts”.
The report called for greater transparency and accountability from countries that were contributing climate finance and for increased efforts to help the small and more vulnerable countries navigate today’s complex systems for climate change.
The government of Mauritius offered to host a Commonwealth Finance Skills Hub, as set out in the report, and this was welcomed by the other Heads of Government. The report also called on Commonwealth leaders to attend the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in 2014.
It also drew attention to the need for better structures to incentivise private finance into green investment in developing countries, and called for the operationalization and capitalisation of the Green Climate Fund, as agreed by all the world’s countries in Cancun in 2010.
Jagdeo has been recognised internationally for his role in battling climate change as manifested in the Low Carbon Development Strategy for Guyana which has seen a financing deal from Norway worth potentially US$ 250M.
