Australia, Britain, Canada make pledges to curb climate change

Australia, Britain and Canada on Friday pledged to spend billions of dollars in curbing climate change at a special session during the Commonwealth summit.

Canada promised 2.5 billion U.S. dollars over five years to help developing countries cope with climate change, according to a statement released by the Commonwealth Secretariat on Saturday.

Britain committed 21 million British pounds (about 31.5 million dollars) for disaster management and 5.5 million British pounds (about 8.2 million dollars) for the ocean-based economy. Australia pledged 1 million dollars toward the Climate Finance Access Hub, a new Commonwealth initiative, the statement said.

On the eve of the UN climate change conference in Paris, known as COP21, leaders of 53 Commonwealth countries gathered in Malta Friday for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, focusing their discussions on how to tackle climate change.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma said the new pledges would help some of the most vulnerable countries in the Commonwealth, according to the statement

"Thirty-one of our 53 members are small states and 25 are small island developing states, which are most vulnerable to climate change," the statement quoted Sharma as saying.

"Many of our members are struggling to cope with the devastating effects of climate change. Islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean are having to deal with rising sea levels that could drive them from their homelands, and an onslaught of increased violent storms that is hampering their development," he said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who addressed the Commonwealth leaders Friday, encouraged leaders of the Commonwealth countries to raise their level of ambition on climate change, warning that failure to act now will "ruin" the globally agreed sustainable development goals. Endi