KAMPALA (AFP) - - Commonwealth heads of state should send a strong message of support to next month's international summit on climate change in Bali, the 53-nation group's chairman said Friday.
"There is little doubt that in order to keep the adaptation challenge in manageable bounds we must work decisively towards the aim of reducing greeenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent below 1990 levels, and this to be reached by 2050," said Lawrence Gonzi, outgoing chairman and Maltese prime minister.
"The challenge of climate change not only requires a united front but an unprecedented level of cooperation and firm action," said Gonzi at the summit's opening ceremony in the Ugandan capital.
He added: "We must send a strong message of support to the forthcoming climate change conference in Bali."
Combating climate change is high on the Commonwealth agenda at the biennial summit, having not even been a footnote to the the final statement at the last meeting on Malta in 2005.
Officials said in the run-up to the summit that all members states are now agreed there is an "urgent" need to tackle the issue.
Present are those in the front line of climate change's effects like Kiribati, a Pacific island group in acute danger of being washed away by rising sea levels, as well as Australia, one of the world's biggest polluters.
The presence of Britain's Prince Charles, attending his first overseas Commonwealth heads of government summit, also ensured the problem was given prominence, as leaders met in behind-closed-doors talks to determine the body's future policy.
"Climate change has become the greatest challenge facing mankind," said Charles, who has previously spoken out about environmental issues, on a visit to a British Council-funded grassroots convention of activists.
"We all hold this planet in trust for our children and grandchildren."
On Thursday, Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo called for a carbon credit scheme to be introduced as an incentive for countries to reduce levels of deforestation, which has been blamed for a rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
"Cut down a forest, and you get money. But if you don't cut it down then there is no money for you," he said as the Commonwealth Business Forum wrapped up talks.
Carbon trading allow countries that reduce carbon dioxide emissions below a target level to sell the remainder to a private company or country that has not met the goal.
The loose federation of mostly former British colonies includes some of the world's major polluters such as Australia, who are said to be holding out on a more strongly-worded final Commonwealth communique to take to Bali.
But British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman Michael Ellam told reporters differing views were to be expected. He refused to say whether Britain was pushing for the Commonwealth to agree on specific binding targets.
"We're looking to achieve consensus here on the business of commitment to a positive agenda in Bali," he added.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Bali aims to see countries agree to launch a roadmap for negotiating cuts in climate-changing carbon emissions from 2012.
That is the date when current pledges under the Kyoto Protocol expire.
Meetings leading up to the Bali talks begin in the Indonesian resort on December 3 and the summit concludes on December 14.
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