Heads of Commonwealth nations and the United Nations opened an unprecedented summit yesterday aimed at strengthening the debate on global warming 10 days ahead of Copenhagen talks.
Opening the meeting, Commonwealth secretary general Kamalesh Sharma warned of the "looming existential catastrophe of climate change" and said the organisation had to restate its "shared responsibilities towards the preservation of our planet".
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, the titular head of the 53-nation Commonwealth composed mainly of former British colonies, was also attending the start of the three-day summit in Trinidad and Tobago.
In a rare move, non-members UN chief Ban Ki-moon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen were to address the leaders behind closed doors yesterday seeking to forge a common stand on tackling climate change.
The three leaders were invited to Trinidad by Prime Minister Patrick Manning who said there had been "some concern about the way negotiations were going ahead of Copenhagen next month."
"A political statement out of (the Commonwealth) is not a statement that one can take lightly," Mr Manning told journalists.
"It comes with the weight of so many countries and so many people, that therefore we feel it can have some effect on influencing the way that the discussions go in Denmark."
Climate change and rising sea levels, blamed on global warming caused by greenhouse gases emitted mostly by the world's industrial powerhouses, threaten many developing nations, a number of which are Commonwealth members that have struggled to have their voices heard.
Fears that the Copenhagen conference starting December 7 would fail to reach a deal on replacing the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012 were eased this week with pledges to cut emissions by Beijing and Washington. The offers by the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters were widely hailed, even amid questions over how effective they would be.
The US said it was aiming to curb emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020.
It is less than calls by the European Union, Japan and UN scientists - but the first concrete numbers put on the table by the world's largest economy and second biggest polluter.
US President Barack Obama will also present at Copenhagen longer-term pledges of a 30 per cent reduction in emissions by 2025, 42 per cent by 2030 and 83 per cent by 2050, officials said.