A special executive session on Climate Change will discuss various issues to tackle climate change with particular focus on producing a unified commitment by the Commonwealth countries at the Paris summit.
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A Commonwealth unit targeting the extremist “scourge” that is fuelling global terrorism is being set up under plans announced by David Cameron.
Stressing the critical importance of the Commonwealth’s contribution to next month’s Paris deliberation on climate change, the Prince of Wales said: “The Commonwealth, its members and businesses have a huge role to play”.
Among the prime ministers who took their seats in the ceremony as their flags flashed across giant screens overhead, were Canada’s new leader, Justin Trudeau, Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif and Pakalitha Mosisili from Lesotho.
The Queen has paid a rare tribute to Prince Charles, in what may have been her valedictory speech at a Commonwealth conference. Commonwealth Secretary General Dr Kamlesh Sharma received the President and Madam Jayanthi Sirisena at the entrance. The Queen said she could not “wish to have been better supported and represented in the Commonwealth than by the Prince of Wales who continues to give so much to it with great distinction”. Born out of the British empire, the Commonwealth of Nations brings together around a quarter of the world’s countries and a third of its population. He said the prime minister would attend a banquet hosted by the British Queen and another banquet by Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.
Mr Turnbull was previously chairman of Australia’s republican movement and after the failure of the 1999 republic referendum he accused then-prime minister John Howard of “breaking the nation’s hearts”.
We live at a time where young people within our Commonwealth and beyond are attracted to join terrorist groups that want to destroy democracy and our way of life.
Dr Muscat spoke about the priorities of the meeting, saying they were mainly education, good governance, equality and climate change.
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Commonwealth, opened the biennial meeting being held with the theme “Adding Global Value”. And I have been especially touched by one such project, The Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy, which has been proposed by Commonwealth countries wanting to harness their collective expertise and resources to protect the world’s forests.
