Malta CHOGM begins with climate focus

Cameron announces £5m to fight terrorism

Queen Elizabeth II opened the 2015 Commonwealth summit on Friday with a colourful ceremony attended by world leaders gathered for pressing talks on climate change.

The monarch, dressed in an aqua blue coat with pink flowers adorning her trademark hat, was serenaded by a harp as she arrived to a red-carpet welcome at a huge sandstone conference centre on the seafront in the Maltese capital Valletta.

As the clock ticks to a UN climate conference in Pa-ris starting on Monday, leaders at the summit including France’s Franco-is Hollande, Britain’s David Cameron and the UN’s Ban Ki-moon will try to open the door to a landmark accord for limiting greenhouse gases. “At this meeting, the Commonw-ealth will be charged with demonstrating leadership, often in practical ways, on an agenda of global iss-ues,” Queen Elizabeth said in her opening address on the Mediterranean island. “I wish you every success in this endeavour.”

She spoke of the Commonwealth’s potential to tackle climate change — giving as an example the Commonwealth Canopy initiative to protect the world’s forests — and stressed the importance of getting young people involved in the fight to slow global warming.

Born out of the British empire, the Commonwealth of Nations brings together around a quarter of the world’s countries and a third of its population. The 24th biennial summit is due to focus on the issues of extremism and migration as well as the environment.

Meanwhile, British Prim-e Minister David Cameron on Friday announced setting up of a £5 million fund for the bloc to target terror groups fuelling the menace and spreading “poisonous ideologies”.

“The Commonwealth has a vital role to play in broadening international efforts to counter extremism. Its civil society and education networks make it particularly well placed to complement international efforts to build counter narratives to this poisonous extremist ideology,” Mr Cameron said.

“This is the struggle of our generation, but by working together we will defeat this extremism scourge that is a threat to us all,” he said.

The Commonwealth me-anwhile appointed its first female secretary-general on Friday when leaders chose Dominica-born law-yer Patricia Scotland to take over the running of the 53-country organisation.

Ms Scotland, a former attorney-general to the British government will take over from Indian dip-lomat Kamalesh Sharma on April 1, 2016.