The Ingram column: The Heads are going for green

Green’s the word here in Trinidad. Even the cleaners touring the media centre with brushes and pans at this Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) are all wearing smart pale green smocks.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning, chair of the meeting and the presidents and prime ministers here are determined to deliver a strong statement that might tip the balance at the Copenhagen UN climate change meeting that opens next week.

The big surprise was the news that to this end President Nicolas Sarkozy of France was coming to meet the Commonwealth leaders. In years gone by the idea that the president of France would ever take part in a Commonwealth summit would have seemed preposterous.

It is said British prime minister Gordon Brown came up with the suggestion that Sarkozy be invited. This summit was already set to make history with the visit of the UN Secretary-General and the prime minister of Denmark, Lars Rasmussen, who will chair the Copenhagen summit. It is the first time a UN Secretary-General has come to a CHOGM.

The Commonwealth was the first international organisation to highlight the pending dangers posed by climate change. It came in Kuala Lumpur in 1989 when President Abdul Gayoom of the Maldives pointed out that his country’s small islands could in a few decades disappear under the rising seas.

To focus the world on the dangers the new president, Mohamed Nasheed, brilliantly this year staged a cabinet meeting underwater with ministers in diving suits sitting at tables.

Nowhere in Maldives is more than 2.1 metres above sea level. Fifty of the 200 inhabited islands are eroding. Nasheed has now announced plans to make Maldives carbon neutral by 2020

Several more of the Commonwealth’s smallest states face the dangers of inundation. In the Pacific Tuvalu and Kiribati are two.

Of the large members Bangladesh, which already suffers regular heavy flooding, could confront major disasters.

Australia is experiencing heavy droughts and soaring temperatures which are hitting agriculture.

A report published in India claimed the Gangotri glacier in the Himalayas, the main source of the Ganges, has receded so greatly it is practically at a standstill. Some scientists say the river beds of the Gangetic Basin could run dry if the glaciers melt

An Indian government report said there was no evidence that climate change was shrinking the glacier and India has recently been equivocal about a commitment to cut carbon emissions.

But it is rapidly introducing green measures across the country. One is to encourage wide use of hybrid cars and electric cars to reduce pollution.

India will be one of the several main players in Copenhagen which are Commonwealth members but still on the eve of CHOGM hold conflicting views about committing themselves to a radical document in Copenhagen.

At the 2007 Kampala CHOGM heads did launch a climate change action plan in a separate Lake Victoria declaration. The urgent need is to make those proposals more specific.

The big question is whether the leaders in Trinidad will be able to produce a strong statement for Copenhagen that will give a lead to the world.

Prime Minister Manning plainly hopes that will be his CHOGM legacy. And all those green government uniforms carrying the label 'nature approved' will have played their played their part.

Derek Ingram

Secretariat Links:

• The Ingram Column: A surge of new activity for the Commonwealth
• Profile: Derek Ingram