Australia Prime Minister Kevin Michael Rudd is anticipating a strong and binding agreement on climate change during crucial talks in Copenhagen next week, arising out of the consensus arrived at by Commonwealth leaders in Port of Spain on the issue.

’This Port of Spain Climate Change Consensus is a significant and substantial document aimed to provide consensus and momentum and support for a substantial outcome in Copenhagen. What the Commonwealth has done today is thrown its full weight behind the process, now chaired by the prime minister of Denmark, Prime Minister Rasmussen,’ Rudd said.

Rudd was speaking at a news conference held at the Trinidad and Tobago International Financial Centre (TTIFC) in Port of Spain, which is serving as the media centre for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.

Sitting alongside Prime Minister Patrick Manning, who he commended for ’his leadership’ in arriving at the consensus document, Rudd said it deals specifically with the Commonwealth’s support for the need for a Copenhagen Launch Fund starting in 2010, which was originally proposed by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

According to the Port of Spain Climate Change consensus, the fund would start next year ’and building to a level of resources of $10 billion annually by 2012’.

Rudd said the Commonwealth consensus seeks to provide immediate financial support to ’small island states, the most vulnerable states around the world today as they deal with the immediate challenges of adaptation and mitigation in the face of climate change.’

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who also attended yesterday’s news conference, said ’the momentum for success in Copenhagen has been growing’ but added ’we need the political leadership at this time’ to effectively address climate change.

But during a news conference at the Financial Centre last evening, Guyana President Bharath Jagdeo, who has been a strong advocate for combating climate change in the Caribbean Community (Caricom), said the US$10 billion annual figure proposed for the fund should be seen as a short-term solution.

Jagdeo said several studies on the economics of climate change have shown it would take about one per cent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to deal with the issue.

’One per cent of global GDP is about US$300 billion. We are talking about $10 billion per annum for the next three years . So we prefer to see this is as interim financing, pending the expiration of the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol,’ Jagdeo said.

Jagdeo also defended T&T from claims that it is large emitter of pollution on a per capita basis as he noted ’that the developed world can’t look at places like Trinidad and Tobago and argue high per-capita emission and then when China and India make the same point that ’we are two tonnes and five tonnes compared to 20 tonnes in the US’, that you disregard those and speak about the absolute quantum of emissions given out by those countries.’

’Trinidad’s emission is a fraction of the accumulated emission of greenhouse gases,’ Jagdeo said. -Juhel Browne