Valletta (Malta), Nov 30: The Commonwealth has vowed to work towards an ambitious, durable and legally-binding deal at the Paris Climate Summit and sought adequate financial assistance to poor countries to help them cut green house gas emissions, a view strongly supported by India.
After lengthy deliberations at its biennial summit here, the 53-nation bloc which represents around a third of the world’s population, also agreed to make concerted efforts in fighting extremism and radicalization and formed a separate unit to deal with the challenge.
The unit will help finance programmes to counter radicalization.
On climate change, the Commonwealth leaders called for urgent global response in checking global warming and said they were “deeply concerned” about the disproportionate threat to its most vulnerable countries.
The grouping, where India is the biggest member in terms of population, agreed to work towards a legally-binding outcome at the Paris climate conference and said the climate change challenge could only be met by a deep cut in global green-house gas emission.
The session on climate change was attended by UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon and French President Francois Hollande besides leaders of major Commonwealth members including Britain, Canada, Australia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
