The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta last week demonstrated leaders’ commitment to combating climate change, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told United Nations leaders yesterday.
Among CHOGM’s achievements, he said, was the commitment made by developed member states to provide $100 billion towards climate funds by 2020. A Climate Finance Access Hub and Green Finance Facility had also been set up to support climate friendly initiatives and to help smaller states access funding.
Dr Muscat was speaking during the opening day of a United Nations summit on the Framework Convention on Climate Change. The summit, known informally as COP21, is being held in Paris and will, for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations, aim to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate change.
The agreement is aimed at keeping global warming below 2°C. Why 2°C?
According to the UN, global warming of more than this amount would have serious consequences, such as an increase in the number of extreme climate events.
To reach this target UN experts estimate that global greenhouse gas emissions would need to be reduced by as much as 70 per cent by 2050. Dr Muscat said Commonwealth leaders had issued a statement uniting them in pursuit of the new 2°C target. They had put forward a commitment to work towards an “ambitious, equitable, inclusive, balanced, rules-based and durable” outcome of COP 21.
“This is offered as a demonstration of commitment to leadership in the movement towards sustainable development in a safe climate,” Dr Muscat told the assembly. He said that although this was a mammoth task, it did not have to come at the cost of development. Instead, it could be seen as an opportunity to further the sustainable economy.
“For too long our negotiators have been stuck in their defensive trenches playing a zero-sum, burden-sharing game, rather than looking over the edge towards the smart, healthy and profitable opportunities that sustainable development offers,” he said.
Dr Muscat said that coming from a small island state, climate change was a major concern.
“The vulnerability of a community on a low-lying coast springs easily to mind,” he said.
Turning back to last week’s CHOGM, Dr Muscat said Commonwealth states had agreed national contributions which covered some 17 per cent of global emissions of greenhouse gases. There would be no backsliding from them, he said.
The conference has attracted 50,000 participants including 25,000 delegates from government, intergovernmental organisations, UN agencies, NGOs and civil society.