Climate change is beginning to be addressed as both an urgent and challenging task affecting many countries of the Commonwealth according to one of its highly ranked official.
In his 2007 report, Don McKinnon, the outgoing Commonwealth Secretary General says, “climate change is one of the urgent current tasks of the Commonwealth”.
"Climate change is a huge issue and strategies to address it's impact in the Commonwealth will be laid down during the 2007 meeting", says the New Zealander who has been at the helm of the Commonwealth for the past eight years. He was speaking to press in Uganda's capital, Uganda.
Experts say all countries must be involved in adjusting to and / or mitigating the effects of global warming.
According to McKinnon, the world is already experiencing human and environmental degradation, sometimes with catastrophic results.
“About 150,000 global deaths annually can be attributed to climate change” says United Nation’s health agency World Health Organisation”.
“The commonwealth provides a partnership in which governments, parliamentarians, non-governmental agencies and scientists share their expertise and experiences and act in concert to reverse disaster in its member countries”, says McKinnon.
Yet climate change is not the only urgent matter that leaders of the Commonwealth seeks to address. Others are the HIV/ AIDS pandemic that affects some 27 million people, education of the existing 70 million unschooled children, poverty of 800 million Commonwealth citizens and political stability.
Uganda is hosting the November 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to address global, economic and political issues affecting citizens of the Commonwealth countries. Among the delegates is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II who is also the Head of the Commonwealth. Thousands of delegates will be arriving in Kampala between 18 – 27 November 2007 which coincide with the CHOGM week.
Some of the delegates are young people, defined by the United Nations Development Fund as anyone aged between 15 and 36 years, raised concern about global warming.
"Climate change means the world is getting hotter and life is getting shorter for us, our children and their children. We have to act rather than talk", says Rajay Naik from United Kingdom.
"All of us should act responsibly. We need local and global action to fight this problem", says Ivan Zammit from Malta.
"Climate change is particularly affecting south Asia because it is in low lying lands. The rising sea level and temperature changes are worrying. We should take adbvantage of the upcoming meeting on climate change in Germany", says Zannatul Ferdon from Bangladesh.
"We have to ask ourselves what we want in 50 or more years time." says Melanie Lee from Singapore.
The young delegates were speaking to the press during the ongoing CHOGM Youth Forum in Kampala.
Speaking about the place of such a meeting in mordern times, McKinnon says “ the Commonwealth is more relevant now than it has ever been in the past”.
The mordern Commonwealth is made up of 53 countries.
Romosh
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