Commonwealth rich nations 'shirking' on climate fight

Commonwealth rich nations are contributing less towards the global effort to tackle climate change, while poorer nations are over-achieving on pledges, a British charity said on Monday.

The richer nations include Britain, Australia, Singapore and Canada.

The report revealed these nations are shirking their responsibilities, while the poorer members are picking up the slack.

The launch of the report coincided with the onset of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London.

The study, Climate inequality in the Commonwealth, by Christian Aid assesses the pledges to the 2015 Paris Agreement of each Commonwealth country and measures them against national capacity and historic emissions, since 1990, to calculate their fair proportion of the effort to address climate change.

The results show that Britain, Canada, and Australia are in the red, whilst poorer countries like Bangladesh, Kenya and Zambia are in credit.

Small island states vulnerable to sea level rise like Kiribati, Vanuatu, and Tuvalu are also more than doing their fair share.

It's also striking that the top five most impacted countries in Germanwatch's latest Climate Risk Index 2017 are all Commonwealth nations -- Mozambique, Dominica, Malawi, India and Vanuatu.

The study exposed the hypocrisy behind many of the warm words put out by the British government, report co-author Mohamed Adow, who is Christian Aid's International Climate Lead, said in a statement.

The report called on the Commonwealth and its members to demonstrate their goal of delivering a more sustainable future by triggering more ambitious climate goals and accelerated action by member countries.

--IANS

vg/and/