Muscat calls for legally-binding climate change deal at UN summit

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has urged world leaders to adopt a legally-binding agreement to tackle climate change.

Addressing the UN climate change summit in Paris, Muscat cited a joint statement signed during last week’s CHOGM in which the 53 Commonwealth nations agreed to back a legally-binding global climate deal  in the form of a protocol.

“We hope that such an outcome, according equal importance to mitigation and adaptation, will mobilise all parties in its implementation and put the global community on track towards low-emission and climate-resilient societies and economies,” Muscat said.

In the joint statement signed in Malta, the Commonwealth nations also reaffirmed their pledge to mobilise $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries adapt and mitigate to climate change effects. Speaking in his role as the Commonwealth chair-in-office, the Maltese Prime Minister urged “practical and swift action” by governments and all other private and public stakeholders to help out climate vulnerable states and communities.

“In this spirit, we have launched the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, the Commonwealth Green Finance Facility initiative, and the pioneering global Commonwealth Youth Climate Change Network,” he recounted.

"Although one of us had reservations on some elements, this remains, I believe, a statement that is worthy of the Commonwealth, a supportive message to all our fellow members of the climate change community and in particular to France."

“Our aim here is not just to reach agreement on what governments undertake to do in the years and decades ahead,” Muscat said. “It is also to give a signal to the world beyond governments – to our citizens, to our corporate leaders, to technological innovators and to investors - a signal of the challenges and the opportunities of moving with determination towards a transformational climate-friendly future that spreads prosperity to all.

“For too long our negotiators have been stuck in their defensive trenches playing a zero-sum, burden-sharing game, rather than looking over the edge towards the smart, healthy and profitable opportunities that sustainable development offers.”