By Commonwealth Secretary-General, The Rt Hon Patricia Scotland KC
Our planet is our only home, and it provides us with all the essentials for survival – the land we inhabit, the water we drink, the food we consume, and the air we breathe. Despite this, our reliance on fossil fuels has brought our planet to the brink of collapse. Our planet, land and ocean are suffering, and so are we.
Back in 1989 in Langkawi, Commonwealth leaders predicted the “permanent and irreversible damage” to the environment and demanded a coordinated global response. The world did not believe the warning. Their prediction came true. We have seen the consequences, not least recently in climate disasters in Vanuatu, Mozambique and Malawi.
Our planet is changing rapidly from melting glaciers to bleached coral reefs. Over the past two decades, more than 7,000 major natural disasters, mostly climate-related, occurred across the world, claiming 1.2 million lives, affecting 4.3 billion people and resulting in $3 trillion in economic losses. This represents a 75 per cent increase in the number of disasters and an 80 per cent increase in economic losses compared to the two decades before them. According to the United Nations, developing countries suffer 99 per cent of climate change related casualties.