Discussions on climate change dominate Commonwealth Games meeting

Discussions on climate change dominated the first day of the Commonwealth Games Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) here, with most participants calling for universal actions to battle climate change.

The meeting brought together 51 heads of state from Commonwealth nations more than two weeks ahead of the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen next month.

During a press conference in the afternoon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said they would back anti-climate change actions with 30 billion U.S. dollars via an environmental fund that will be spent during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Sarkozy said he had received encouraging promises from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a breakfast.

"Singh also told me that India will never produce more carbon dioxide than the average of all other nations and that India would never be an obstacle in climate change negotiations," he said.

Sarkozy added that France will propose the creation of a new UN body called the World Environment Organization, which will mainly implement agreements that will emerge from the Copenhagen meeting.

No nation would be obliged to choose between growth and carbon dioxide reduction, he continued, describing such an idea as "twentieth-century thinking."

Many of the Commonwealth nations are small island states that have been directly affected by rising sea levels, and others are in the Caribbean which have suffered more frequent and stronger hurricanes due to high sea temperatures.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed France's proposal, saying it is an attempt to bridge the gap between developed and developing nations in order to achieve a clear and legally enforceable deal in Copenhagen. But Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen cautioned that many details need to be settled.

"What we need to achieve in Copenhagen is an agreement on financing. The new fund will need a pledging procedure, and the most developed nations have to participate," Rasmussen said.

It has been accepted that the world's most industrialized nations have to make more efforts than developing nations, becausethey had polluted more to attain their current status, he added.

So far, 85 heads of government have already agreed to participate in the Copenhagen talks, Rasmussen said, adding that many more are considering it.

Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the outgoing chairman of CHOGM, stressed climate change in his speech during the opening ceremony.

"Climate change is a direct responsibility of those who use unclean technologies," he said, adding that "it is a new form of aggression and must be stopped."

The incoming chairman, Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Patrick Manning, said that CHOGM has an obligation to pave the way for the rest of the world "because it contains a microcosm of the international community; small islands, middle income nations and industrialized nations from the world's five continents."

CHOGM has brought representatives of 51 governments to Port of Spain, the capital of Caribbean island nation Trinidad and Tobago.

There are around 5,000 delegates at the conference, including representatives of commonwealth governments, youth organizations, businessmen and non-government organizations.