Gathering Of Commonwealth Leaders Underway In Trinidad

(RTTNews) - The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2009 began Friday in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago amidst expectations that the meeting will act as dress rehearsal for United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Copenhagen beginning December 7th.

Representatives of the governments of the 53 nations that make up the Commonwealth - as well as leaders from non-member nations such as France and China - arrived in the small Caribbean nation on Wednesday as did Queen Elizabeth II, the titular head of the Commonwealth.

The Queen spoke at Friday's opening ceremony, praising the international organization started by her father George VI in 1949, and calling on the heads of government attending the meeting to address the pressing issues facing the Commonwealth and the world as a whole. These include uneven economic development amongst the nations of the world and the imminent threat posed to the world by climate change.

Invoking the national motto of host nation Trinidad and Tobago - "Together we aspire, together we achieve" - the Queen called on delegates to unite in addressing these issues and others.

The Queen's comments underscored points raised by the Prime Minister of Uganda Apolo Nsibambi and Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning in their remarks at the Opening Ceremony.

The two - speaking as part of a ceremonial handing over of CHOGM hosting duties (Uganda hosted the last meeting in 2007) - called on delegates to reflect on the common challenges facing the nations of the Commonwealth and to act as a single voice that could affect the future of the world as a whole and not just the member states of the organization.

The Commonwealth consists mainly of nations of the former British Empire, comprising 53 nations with a combined population of approximately 2 billion people. Member states include the United Kingdom, India, South Africa, Canada and Australia.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government are meeting for the twentieth time in the organization's sixty year history. With some interruptions, the CHOGM has been held on a biennial basis since 1971. Although resolutions made at the meetings are not binding, delegates have in the past tried to present consensus statements on various issues facing the member nations and the world as a whole.

Amongst the items thought to be on the agenda at the three-day meeting this year are membership matters involving Zimbabwe, which could possibly be readmitted to the Commonwealth providing President Robert Mugabe follows through on pledges to reform his government of the African nation, and Rwanda, which is seeking to join the organization. Also on the agenda will be strategies for coping with the global recession, which has been felt most acutely amongst developing members.

But the most pressing issue for the meeting figures to be climate change, with the meeting being seen as an opportunity to form a consensus on the issues of sustainable economic growth in the face of dangers to the global environment ahead of the Copenhagen conference in December.

The issue arose very pointedly in Thursday's pre-CHOGM press conference held by Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning when a reporter from the BBC questioned the Prime Minister on his own nation's commitment to fighting global warming.

In response to the reporter's highlighting of T&T's position as one of the world's top ten polluters on a per capita basis, Manning vowed to act ensure the nation met its responsibilities to the global ecosystem, while also saying that the ultimate responsibility lays with the largest polluters in absolute terms, nations such as China and the USA.

How effective the CHOGM will be in intervening in the debates around climate change remains to be seen, but it is likely that the issue will continue to dominate the proceedings over the next three days.

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