GEORGETOWN (AFP) — Global-warming and its devastating environmental effects were to top the agenda of a two-day meeting of finance ministers from more than 50 Commonwealth countries due to open here Monday.
Ransford Smith, deputy secretary general of the 53-nation organization, said the international community needs to balance economic growth with the use of new and clean technologies because climate change would adversely impact on agriculture outputs in many developing countries, as well as employment patters and populations shifts.
"There will be other consequences that you need to be able to cost and be aware of in making the chances," Smith told journalists here Sunday ahead of the October 15-17 meeting whose theme is "Climate Change: The Challenges Facing Finance Ministers."
The Commonwealth nations, sometimes known as the British Commonwealth, is a voluntary association of 53 former British colonies which now are sovereign states, plus the United Kingdom itself and Mozambique. Read More
