President Ranil Wickremesinghe has elaborated and on climate change in his recent policy statements. The following is a Voice Tube interview on ‘climate change with President. President Wickremesinghe, on the importance of King Charles’ participation in the COP 27 climate change conference. He also proposes to build a new Climate Change University for the region.
Why is Sri Lanka placing so much importance on climate change, especially during an economic crisis?
If you are looking at the economic crisis, we must have climate change because the economy and climate change are interlinked.
We have to recover from this position. There must be economic development in the country. We have to go ahead. Then our economy must be along the lines of a Green Economy. That’s what everybody else is doing in the world. We can’t be outside of that.
Secondly, the tremendous potential Sri Lanka has as a Green Economy. We have just seen renewable energy. There are many other fields in which Sri Lanka can benefit, and we must go ahead.
What are some of the initiatives that Sri Lanka has put in place or plans to put in place to address climate change?
We haven’t done much after COP 26 due to the political instability in Sri Lanka, but we do have a plan. Our framework will consider the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement which we signed, the decisions taken at COP 26, and the Commonwealth Heads-of-Government resolution on climate change. We are also looking at the blue economy. So within this framework, we are working out our initiatives, the potential we have, and the steps we have to take; we are even looking at water at some stage, the degraded soil, and reforestation. In addition, I think there must be capacity building, not only for Sri Lanka but for our entire region.
We are also proposing a new climate change university, which would be devoted to capacity building among the officials and the activists involved in climate change.
You mentioned the COP summit. Will you be attending the COP 27 summit next month? What is the Government hoping to achieve by attending this summit?
We want to play our role there. As an Indian Ocean island nation, we are very concerned about the impact it can have on us, and we should also work with India, especially in places like Tamil Nadu. A lot is being done on climate change.
I also want to get support for the climate change university, which we have been advocating. We are going ahead, and I have asked the former President Nasheed of the Maldives to act an as special envoy on climate change within a number of countries along with Erik Solheim, who came as an adviser on our legislation on the Climate Change University.
The climate summit has been running for 27 editions this year. Do you think the summit has been successful, or there’s space for improvement?
Well, 2015 was significant when we came to climate change agreements. Certainly, COP 26 was very important. We have to follow up on COP 26. There have been some countries that have actually fallen behind. They have retreated from the positions they have taken.
COP 27 is essential considering the situation. The President of Egypt has invited King Charles to address COP 27. I also think it is imperative. Unfortunately, there seems to be some issue in the UK about him attending COP 27.
I can’t talk of the UK, but I am talking about a member of the Commonwealth. King Charles is the head of the Commonwealth, and last February at the CHOGM, we passed a resolution on climate change. So he should be here. I think the UK Government should reconsider it and enable him to be in Egypt for COP 27 because he has an important role.
(Courtesy Voice Tube)