COMMONWEALTH LEADERS FAVOUR FAST START FUNDING ON CLIMATE CHANGE

From Muin Abdul Majid

PORT OF SPAIN (Trinidad and Tobago), Nov 30 (Bernama) -- Commonwealth
leaders meeting here have thrown their weight behind fast start funding to
assist vulnerable states tackle the adverse impacts of climate change.

They issued a declaration on climate change Saturday incorporating
Malaysia's suggestion that such financial assistance be disbursed in the form of
grants rather than low-interest loans.

"Most of the countries involved may have a high debt level and limited
ability to service their loans. That's why we made the suggestion," Malaysian
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak told Malaysian journalists at the end
of Day Two of the three-day Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)
2009 in this Caribbean port city. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on Friday.

Malaysia had also proposed that conditions to avail the fund should be kept
to a minimum.

In the declaration, the Commonwealth leaders welcomed the initiative to
establish, as part of a comprehensive climate agreement, a Copenhagen Launch
Fund starting in 2010 and building to a level of resources of US$10 billion
annually by 2012.

They said fast start funding for adaptation should be focused on the most
vulnerable countries.

"We welcome a proposal to provide immediate, fast disbursing assistance with
a dedicated stream for small island states, and associated low-lying coastal
states of at least 10 per cent of the fund," they said.

They also recognised the need for further, specified and comparable funding
streams, to assist the poorest and most vulnerable countries to cope with, and
adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change.

The United Nations (UN) climate change conference will take place in
Copenhagen next month to reach accord on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol of
1997.

Najib said Commonwealth leaders gathered in Port of Spain believed that an
internationally legally-binding agreement was essential.

He said: "CHOGM also felt that such an agreement should be reached no later
than 2010."

In the declaration, the Commonwealth leaders said the agreement in
Copenhagen must address the urgent needs of developing countries by providing
financing, support for adaptation, technology transfer, capacity building,
approaches and incentives for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest
degradation, and for afforestation and sustainable management of forests.

They said developed countries should continue to lead on cutting their
carbon emissions, and developing countries, in line with their national
circumstances, should also take action to achieve a substantial deviation from
business-as-usual emissions including with financial and technical support, and
also supported by technology and capacity building.

To a question, Najib said he had yet to decide whether or not to attend the
Copenhagen summit following a request from the organisers.

He said Malaysia would send Natural Resources and Environment Minister
Douglas Uggah Embas to the climate talks.
-- BERNAMA