London - Burning issues of climate change, the global economic crisis and human rights will be on the minds of Commonwealth heads of states and government when they get together in a luxury hotel in Port of Spain later this week. The 2009 summit of the 53-member association of former British colonies and dependancies will be opened Friday by Queen Elizabeth II, who travelled to the Trinidad and Tobago capital from Bermuda, where she took part in celebrations marking the 400th anniversary of British settlement on the island.
British officials insist that, despite the ceremonial aspects of the occasion, this year's two-day summit will focus on serious issues such as climate change - just days before the UN climate conference is due to open in Copenhagen.
A proposed timetable for the possible re-admission of Zimbabwe to the grouping by 2011 will also be discussed along with a range of human rights issues in other countries.
The importance attached to this year's emphasis on climate change is underlined by the participation in the conference of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose invitation as a special guest marks a first in the history of the biennial Commonwealth summits.
French officials said Sarkozy would use the event to push the climate change policies he and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva agreed at a meeting in Paris earlier this month.
The Franco-Brazilian agreement calls on rich nations to commit themselves to a radical cut in greenhouse emissions by 2050 - proposals Sarkozy wants to push ahead of Copenhagen.
Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he wants to urge Commonwealth nations to back an ambitious funding package to combat climate change.
"I will go to the Commonwealth conference to try to build a consensus between rich countries, like Australia and ourselves, and some of the poorest countries in the world about how we can finance climate change for developing countries as well as developed countries," Brown told parliament in London.
It was essential to reach an agreement on funding in return for gaining a commitment from the worlds' poorest countries to cut emissions, Brown said.
He hoped to win backing for his proposal to raise 100 billion pounds (165 billion dollars) of funding for climate change by 2020 from contributions from the European Union (EU), the US and some of the worlds' richest countries, Brown said.
The conference is also expected to offer Zimbabwe the prospect of readmission in 2011, depending on further progress on economic and political reform, including human rights, judicial reform and a constitutional overhaul.
British officials said that although some progress towards reform had been made by the power-sharing coalition Zimbabwe, they needed to be "more solid" before a firm commitment could given for the country's return to the Commonwealth fold.
The issue of Zimbabwe has overshadowed successive Commonwealth meetings over the years. In 2003, President Robert Mugabe pre-empted continued suspension by quitting what he termed the "evil organization."
The Commonwealth, often dismissed by critics as a "post-colonial club" with a poor human rights record, and hailed as an "ideal soft power network" by its supporters, needs a "democracy health check" at least every two years, a recent report published in London suggested.
The report, Democracy in the Commonwealth, said it was time for a new impetus in the Commonwealth commitment to promoting democracy.
"The struggle for democracy in the 21st century is not about imposing any particular model - it is about moving, often painfully, towards progressively more just and open societies," said the report, which was co-authored by the University of London.
