Commonwealth steers clear of binding emissions cuts

Simon Sturdee Yahoo News 24 Nov 07;

Commonwealth leaders failed to agree Saturday on recommending binding emissions cuts ahead of next month's climate conference in Bali, opting instead to send a "very strong political statement."

"There are clearly some (Commonwealth leaders) who are clearly not ready to use the term binding at this stage," Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon said following talks between the group's leaders in Uganda.

"The objective was to make a very strong political statement without getting caught up in too many technicalities ahead of Bali," he said.

The Bali international summit will see nations discuss a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on lowering harmful emissions. The protocol expires in 2012.

Countries such as the United States and Commonwealth members Canada and Australia -- at least under the outgoing government -- oppose binding cuts if these do not include all countries, especially economic powerhouse China.

The Commonwealth, a 53-nation federation of mostly former British colonies, comprises some of the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases such as Britain, India, Canada and Australia.

But some members are also very much in the front line of climate change's effects such as the Maldives and Kiribati, which are in danger of being submerged by rising sea levels in the Indian and Pacific oceans.

The Commonwealth's outgoing chairman Lawrence Gonzi, the Maltese prime minister, had said Friday that greenhouse gas emissions must be at least halved from 1990 levels by 2050.

But a Commonwealth statement said Saturday the Bali talks should be "inclusive in nature and should work towards outcomes that are ambitious, comprehensive, equitable, have respect for different national circumstances, and provide for flexibility in addressing climate change.

"Our shared goal should be to achieve a comprehensive post-2012 global agreement that strengthens, broadens, and deepens current arrangements and leads to reduced emissions of global greenhouse gases.

"This should include a long-term aspirational goal for emissions reduction to which all countries would contribute."

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown, though, welcomed his new Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd's pledge to reverse previous government policy in Canberra and sign the Kyoto agreement, as well as commit to binding targets.

He said such moves "will be a very important factor" in Bali.

Elsewhere, the Commonwealth called for more promotion of economic development of poor countries and in particular a shift from predominantly agricultural societies to ones with strong industrial and services sectors.

"Backwardness destroys the environment," Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said at a joint news conference with McKinnon.

As a sign of the disparity in Commonwealth member states, Museveni said 73 percent of his own country's workforce were in agriculture compared with just 1.4 percent in Britain.

Earlier Saturday, Commonwealth leaders appointed Kamalesh Sharma from India as the organisation's new secretary general.

Sharma, currently India's high commissioner in Britain and a former ambassador to the United Nations, replaces New Zealander McKinnon who is stepping down next year after the end of his second four-year term.

Sharma deflected questions on Pakistan, which the Commonwealth suspended on Thursday, saying the grouping's relations with Islamabad were McKinnon's responsibility until he took up his post on April 1.

"Between now and that time there are four months to go... In any event we have a working mechanism and it is for his (McKinnon's) team or for himself to make observations on issues of this nature," he told a news conference.

Sharma, 67, is the first secretary general from an Asian Commonwealth country in more than 40 years and comes as India -- the grouping's most populous member -- prepares to host the next Commonwealth Games in 2010.

Commonwealth fails to back climate targets
Barry Moody, Reuters 24 Nov 07;

KAMPALA (Reuters) - The Commonwealth said on Saturday climate change threatened the existence of small island members faced with rising sea levels but it failed to back binding targets on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

A statement issued on the second day of a summit of the club of mostly former British colonies said the Commonwealth was gravely concerned about climate change, which was "a direct threat to the very survival of some Commonwealth countries, notably small island states."

It said the cost of inaction would be greater than taking early measures to counteract global warming.

But the declaration by the Commonwealth summit (CHOGM) contained only vague language and lacked binding targets on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, prompting Greenpeace Executive Director John Sauvan to condemn it as inadequate.

"There is a complete lack of urgency, given the need to get climate changing emissions under control ... and the disproportionate impact of climate change on the world's poorest Commonwealth members," he said.

The Commonwealth secretary-general, Don McKinnon, called the agreement "quite a leap forward" although it stopped short of the major statement that many countries had said they wanted.

Before the summit, Britain had called for an "unequivocal message" and had urged developed nations to make binding commitments before an environment conference in Bali next month.

The Kampala declaration stopped short of that, but did say developed countries should take the lead in cutting emissions.

"No strategy or actions to deal with climate change should have the effect of depriving developing countries of ... sustainable economic development," it said.

BALI SUMMIT

The Bali meeting will discuss an agreement to succeed the Kyoto protocol which aims to reduce emissions of the gases that cause global warming but which expires in 2012.

Kyoto exempts developing nations, including major emitters India and China, from commitments to reduce greenhouse gases.

Canada's conservative government said on Friday it would not sign an agreement in Kampala unless it called for all countries to reduce emissions.

The Commonwealth traditionally reaches agreement by consensus and the need to compromise between Canada's position and the demands of developing nations, especially island states, may explain the vague nature of Saturday's declaration.

The Commonwealth Climate Change Action Plan called for a post-Kyoto agreement to reduce greenhouse gases but spoke only of "a long term aspirational global goal for emissions reduction to which all countries would contribute."

Environmentalists sharply attacked similar non-binding language after recent summits by the G8 industrial nations and the APEC Asia-Pacific group.

A British official said the statement "does what we wanted which is to continue ...to build momentum ahead of Bali."

But he added: "there is a question over whether CHOGM is the right place to commit people to binding targets when we have Bali around the corner. Some participants felt Bali was the right place to discuss commitments."

Australia has been one of the Commonwealth states most reluctant to combat climate change, but Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd said after winning a general election on Saturday that Australia would now sign up to Kyoto.

Ex-Prime Minister John Howard government's refusal to ratify Kyoto angered Pacific island nations, including Commonwealth members, who could be submerged by rising sea levels.

(Additional reporting by Tim Cocks and Jeremy Clarke; Editing by Oliver Bullough)