The Commonwealth’s view of the role of multilateral environmental institutions in forging an equitable and ethical approach at Copenhagen

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the Commonwealth of 53 nations on five continents. It is this sheer Commonwealth size and scope which gives it such a stake - and prompts it to have such a say - in our collective environmental future.

Our start-point is that all of our international institutions are run in such a way as to make it harder, not easier, for the world to achieve development, and to achieve it fairly and sustainably.

What we agreed in Stockholm in 1972 is a long way from being enacted in time for Copenhagen in 2009. We are still failing to agree an equitable way to share the burdens both of impacts and implementation, and to share the use of both physical and financial resources. This is the crux of our failure in global climate change negotiations, but we see it, too, in our failure to conclude a Doha Development Round, to bring Agenda 21 to meaningful fruition, and to follow-up on our commitments within the Monterrey Consensus.

We have arrived at a time in which the community of nations is struggling to reflect a new geopolitical reality within political structures that were set in an earlier, and very different, age. If we fail to do this successfully, we face the prospect of serious ecological consequences that will lead to further human conflict and distress.

In 2007, Commonwealth Heads of Government expressed their concern that, I quote, “the current architecture of international institutions, which was largely designed in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, does not reflect the challenges in the world of the 21st Century”, unquote. They asked me to begin work on advocating for wide-ranging reforms that would take special account of the needs of Least Developed Countries and of small states. That process is very much underway, and will make for Noises Off, and Noises On, when the G20 meets again in London in April.

In a nutshell, all of our Heads have very publicly called for reforms to international institutions that are based around five principles: legitimacy, representation, responsiveness, flexibility, transparency, and effectiveness. This is the view of an organization of values. However big our outward differences – we are large and small, rich and poor – it is in striving for these five principles for better global governance that the Commonwealth stands united.

With these principles as our beacons, how can the Commonwealth shed light on the path to an equitable outcome in Copenhagen, and beyond? Here are three ways.

First, through helping to ensure a more level playing field in global climate negotiations. Our least developed and our smaller member states struggle, with their small delegations and their very limited institutional and technical capacity. They also find it hard to influence global responses to climate change because, even though they bear the heaviest impacts of climate change, they are not seen to be ‘part of the problem’. The Commonwealth’s response has been to support small state negotiators through research, information-sharing, and co‑ordination in advance of negotiating sessions.

Second, we can facilitate dialogue on climate change, at the very highest level. Indeed, it was our Commonwealth Heads of Government who, in November 2007, agreed the Lake Victoria Commonwealth Climate Change Action Plan. That was a statement of political will, based on equity and social justice. It was built around six areas of practical action – all of which are moving ahead, and, of which, ‘more perhaps anon’. But what matters next is that our Leaders will meet again in Port-of-Spain in November this year, just 7 days before the opening of the Copenhagen negotiations. In the lead-up to our meeting, I will be working closely with them to elaborate just what an equitable agreement might look like, and to build some common ground on key issues such as forests and financing that we can then take to a wider international setting.

Third and finally, we have specific things to say about the reform of global environmental governance. You may have read some of our papers on the disfunctionality of the current system, and our best remedies for it. You may also know that Commonwealth Environment Ministers will meet later this month in the margins of UNEP in Nairobi, to examine the prospects for an international conference on International Environmental Governance. We all know that governance arrangements for environmentally sustainable development have been discussed in a range of high-level fora, including the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the UNEP Governing Council. But they have never been the focus for a major stand-alone international meeting. This could be the time.

Ladies and gentlemen, our development and environmental challenges are many. All are linked; and all therefore demand a holistic response. It is the Commonwealth view that deep reforms in our international governance structures – equipping them to give full support to sustainable development – may yet prove to be one of the most significant factors in delivering a truly equitable response to the challenge of climate change.

ENDS