Science academies call for greener, fairer Commonwealth

22 June 2021

The Royal Society has joined 22 other Commonwealth science academies to urge their nations’ leaders to work together to address the interlinked challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and health, which have such unequal impact. 

Their call, made in a  joint letter to Commonwealth Secretary-General Baroness Patricia Scotland, results from the findings of the Commonwealth Science Conference 2021. It comes in the week that Commonwealth heads of government were due to meet in Kigali, Rwanda, but postponed this due to Covid-19.

Baroness  Scotland is due to lead delegations to both COP15 (the UN Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity ) in October and COP26 (UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties) in November, where  Commonwealth leaders are expected to play key roles in international negotiations on environmental and climate policy.