Associated Press
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad -- Leaders of the Commonwealth countries called Saturday for a legally binding international agreement on climate change and a global fund with billions of dollars to help poor countries meet its mandates.
The 53-nation meeting was the largest gathering of international leaders before next month's global climate summit in Copenhagen.
The leaders said a deal should be adopted no later than next year and the support money should be available simultaneously, providing up to $10 billion a year starting in 2012.
At least 10 percent of the fund should be dedicated to small island and low-lying coastal nations that are at risk of catastrophic changes from global warming, the group said.
"Climate change is the predominant global challenge," the Commonwealth leaders said in a joint declaration. "For some of us, it is an existential threat."
The document called for a "legally binding" agreement by the world's nations.
Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, making rare appearances at a Commonwealth meeting to help drive the climate discussion, portrayed the joint declaration as further evidence of growing momentum for next month's summit.
