Name: Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland: The CNBC Conversation
Uploaded: 2025-10-31T18:19:41.000Z
Duration: 12 min 21 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

It's often described as a family of nations.

56 countries and more than two and a half billion people.

The Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Baroness Scotland, sits down for the CNBC conversation.

The Commonwealth is a voluntary organisation whose nations have agreed shared goals such as development, democracy and peace.

As Commonwealth Secretary General, Patricia Scotland is responsible for protecting and promoting those values, and

she oversees the executive body, the Commonwealth Secretariat.

King Charles III is the head of the Commonwealth, and in 2024, the organization celebrated its 75th anniversary.

Secretary General, thank you so much for joining me here at Marlborough House.

It's a real pleasure to have you because, of course, this is the home of the Commonwealth, so if you're a Commonwealth citizen, this is your home.

And of course, it's the 75th anniversary of the modern Commonwealth.

How would you describe the standing of the Commonwealth in today's world?

I think the Commonwealth has never, ever been more needed.

If you think about who we are, we are 56 countries, we represent the whole world.

And I'm sure if we tried to recreate it today, we probably couldn't because it's a quirk of history.

But it's a quirk of history that so many countries now are lining up to join.

So the most recent countries had nothing to do with the old Anglophone Commonwealth.

And I think that's because it is truly modern and it is inclusive and it doesn't leave anyone behind and everyone has a say around the table.

And I think people just think in this world of trauma and difficulty, where people can be actually really unkind to each other, to come somewhere where you can find kindness and you can be yourself and still be loved is pretty special.

Every two years, of course, the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting is held, and

in October 2024, it's going to be in Samoa for the first time ever in the Pacific island.

I really can't tell you how enormously proud I am that Samoa, one of the smallest islands in the Pacific, is going to host all 56 countries of the Commonwealth.

We know that our small states, our island states, are the most vulnerable.

Climate is going to be at the top of the agenda.

So for people to be able to travel to Samoa and see the reality, which is the beauty and the grace and the wonder of the Pacific, but

also the acute vulnerability, sensitivity is pivotally important.

that 1.5 slogan that people came up with in 2015 wasn't a slogan, it's the reality of the lives of many of the people on the islands and they know that they are literally fighting for survival.

So all the things we're doing in Commonwealth Secretariat to build to the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, which with just $8 million, we've already delivered into the hands of our member states, $357 million and we have $500 million in the pipeline.

But we know that money is just not enough and we have to do more, we have to push harder because this is not going to get better unless we make it better.

So in Samoa, we are hoping that we'll come up with some of the solutions, the resolutions, and

we know it will take all of us, all of us globally working together to be the difference that we need to make.

Of course, at the last COP meeting, we saw the formal establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund to help those hardest hit by the climate crisis.

You know that when we came together in Kigali in 2022 for the first time after 27 years, it was the Commonwealth leaders who said we must have a loss and damage fund.

And of course we were thrilled when we went to Sharm El Sheikh and we got a commitment for a loss and damage fund.

And you could not but be pleased that we had some money.

But compared to how much we need, when you think that overall people think that to get the balance right, we're going to need about 4,700,000,700 is absolutely more than zero.

And I am a cup half full person, but it's nowhere enough.

So this COP in Azerbaijan, which is going to try not just to look at loss and damage, but

to look at the promises that we've made and still haven't fulfilled.

Back in 2009, we said the world would give 100 million to these small, vulnerable and damaged countries, countries who had paid virtually nothing towards the creation of this terrible, disastrous position we have on climate, but

So this new cop 29 that Azerbaijan is going to be hosting will be all about, frankly, us putting our money where our mouth is.

Maybe it's because I'm one of 12 children and I never like to see a penny wasted seeing this money which just sends me really crazy.

And I think we can do better, but we need to work together.

And if we work together, we'll deliver it.

To the critics that feel that the cops are not relevant, not valuable, and

that the world cannot reach its climate goals.

But I think we've got to be really clear.

This is about choice, but it is about all of us.

Can we, by coming together, all of us, and

pooling our money, pooling our resources, pooling our genius, can we together do this?

I can't emphasize how much I think this is a choice, then we are going to leave our world and our future in a parlor state.

We can either swim together or we can drown separately.

And of course, you work closely with His Majesty King Charles, who's now, of course, head of the Commonwealth.

You were sitting next to him at his coronation.

What does that friendship mean to you and what's your message been to him after his cancer diagnosis and treatment?

And since I've been Secretary General, it's been extraordinary to be able to work with him on climate change, on the things that he's been passionate about.

And I've been so grateful for his support in 2016, when we made, as a Commonwealth, climate change one of our major issues we had to tackle.

And when I said that we really needed a regenerative approach towards climate change and we needed to reverse it, I think lots of people thought I was slightly crazy in 2016.

But His Majesty didn't and he agreed that we had got it right and he supported us.

And he continued to support the small islands on their journey through his Sustainable Markets initiative, trying to get business to be involved in the green revolution, to make this a reality, a pathway.

I think he's been extraordinary and I was really pleased that this terrible diagnosis finally enabled people to express to him in a way that even he would accept, that they genuinely loved and cared for him and, and

appreciated all the work that he has undertaken for his whole life, but

certainly in the last 50 odd years to make their lives better and to change.

And I'm terribly grateful for all the help, the support that he has given to me as Secretary General, to the Member States, because he's always been cheering them on and thinking about what else he can do.

Finally, Secretary General, you will be leaving this family, this home soon.

Oh, I have no idea what my next chapter is going to be.

As you know, there is so much for us to do before the 31st of March, 2025, and

I will hand the baton on to the next Secretary General.

But it's been a huge privilege and pleasure.

I think it's probably been the greatest privilege of my life to serve the 56 countries.

And I think I've learned so much and I feel I've been blessed to be here during this time and I'm really proud of the things we've done.

I've had eight, soon to be nine years of an opportunity just to help other people have a platform to do some amazingly good things for the common good.