The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)

The challenges have never been greater. This meeting provided an opportunity for leaders to discuss in particular extremism, climate change, the challenges faced by small states and sustainable development. Leaders were united in condemning the recent terrorist atrocities in Paris and elsewhere. They agreed that the Commonwealth has an important role to play in broadening international efforts to counter extremism, including by working through its civil society, youth and education networks to reduce the appeal of poisonous ideologies. To help the Commonwealth to take practical action, I announced that the Government would be committing £1 million each year for five years to establish and run a new Commonwealth unit dedicated to supporting efforts to counter the causes of radicalisation. A number of Commonwealth states face significant challenges and the unit will co-ordinate the sharing of expertise.

Heads also met in a special session to discuss climate action. This was timely, coming just ahead of the UN climate conference in Paris. President Hollande, as host to the climate negotiations, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed Heads, as did His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. I spoke to encourage unity and ambition ahead of Paris and to set out UK priorities for a climate deal. Heads adopted a climate action statement setting out what they wanted the Paris climate negotiations to achieve.

I also announced a number of practical initiatives demonstrating UK support for the Commonwealth’s small island developing states, many of which are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and have a major stake in the Paris conference. The initiatives I announced include £20 million to allow more small island states to access disaster risk insurance and to aid disaster risk contingency planning. I also pledged £5.6 million of technical assistance to help small island states develop their maritime economies, and a further £1 million for expert assistance to access development finance. I also highlighted: up to £400,000 from existing budgetary contributions to support a new Commonwealth climate finance access hub; UK support for a new working group within the Commonwealth to identify ways to lever private sector investment for green projects; and £50,000 to the Commonwealth small states offices in New York and Geneva.

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