The parliaments within the Commonwealth have recommended ensuring a framework for combating climate change which will be developed and implemented and updates within each region.
The countries have also recommended legal reforms and reinforcing policies, strengthening institutions and mobilisation of resources towards climate change to make a low carbon and climate resilient development pathway.
They said they are committed to finding means to give legal protection to people displaced by climate change and support a UN General Assembly resolution to this effect.
The recommendations were made on Monday at a workshop titled “The Climate Change Debate: A Challenge for the Commonwealth?” at the 63rd Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference (CPC) in Dhaka.
Derek Thomas, Member of the Legislative Council from St Helena, moderated the workshop while Barton Scotland, an MP from Guyana, and Maria Manguiat, representative of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), lead the discussion.
After the workshop, Bangladeshi lawmaker Fazilatunnesa Bappi told reporters that the recommendations would be placed into the General Assembly tomorrow.
SDG issue
At a workshop on SDGs, it was also recommended that the members of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) should work to ensure that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have a proper gender lens.
The CPA’s Empower Gender Parliamentarian Group will promote gender sensitive annual reports, which will be placed in parliaments.
Discussing parliament’s role in ensuring democracy, the parliamentarians recommended that the parliaments should be more transparent and have a separation of power, making it easily accessible for the public.
A democratic parliament should reflect the social diversity of the population in terms of gender, geography, language, religion, ethnicity and any other politically significant characteristics, they said.
They suggested that parliaments should incorporate the 17 SDGs into legislation and policies for the countries’ specific goals.
