PM Salwai addressed United Nations on Climate Change
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Mr President;
Excellencies;
The Secretary-General;
Distinguished delegates;
Ladies and gentlemen
Excellencies;
The Secretary-General;
Distinguished delegates;
Ladies and gentlemen
I bring to you all warm greetings from the people of Vanuatu, on whose behalf I am privileged to address this august gathering.
Mr President,
We gather here today at a historic juncture in the global struggle
to minimize the impacts of climate change and radically transform
humanity’s business-as-usual development trajectory away from fossil
fuel-driven growth.
Mr. President,
The people of Vanuatu celebrated the conclusion of the 21st Conference
of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the
adoption of the Paris Agreement. This Agreement is fully in line with
Vanuatu’s highest-level National Sustainable Development Plan, and has
the potential to promote sustainable development across the globe. We
trust that it will indeed support us to meet national green development
aspirations and ensure that our people can enjoy prosperity while not
compromising the life supporting climate system under our stewardship.
Vanuatu applauds the leadership of French COP President Manuel
Pulgar-Vidal and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres for
their unwavering commitment to the cooperation of over 190 countries and
in securing many of the positive outcomes Vanuatu sees in the
agreement. The road to Paris was long, and hard, and for many of the
issues first tabled by Vanuatu at the UNFCCC, has been several decades
long.
Mr. President,
Vanuatu, as chair of AOSIS, first introduced the challenge of Loss
& Damage to the UNFCCC in 1991. The limits to climate change
adaptation are very real for the people of Vanuatu, who are now
recovering from the devastation of category 5 Cyclone Pam and today
facing a food and water crisis caused by the strongest El Nino event
ever recorded. As such, Vanuatu is pleased that the loss and damage
associated with Climate Change Impacts will be perpetually considered
under the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage.
It must be clear however, that Vanuatu has serious concern with
the premise that liability and compensation should be excluded from the
scope of the Paris Agreement. In addition to historical
responsibilities for emissions, the continued actions of some Parties
clearly indicates that they are not seriously or ambitiously undertaking
mitigation efforts and thereby elevating the catastrophic risks and
impacts of climate change faced by my people. Vanuatu continues to
believe that liability and compensation should be addressed as part of
the loss and damage under the multilateral climate change regime. For
the record, by signing the Paris Agreement, Accordingly Mr. President I
wish to declare at this juncture that in signing the Paris Agreement
here today, Vanuatu does not waive any current or future rights to
compensation for climate change loss and damage. We will make another
declaration to this effect upon ratifying the Paris Agreement.
Mr. President,
Vanuatu lobbied hard to ensure that clear language exists in this
Agreement that all Parties must “pursue ambitious efforts to limit the
temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels”. According
to the Agreement emissions must peak “as soon as possible” and then
rapidly decline. For the record, Vanuatu insists that no later than
2050 emissions must have achieved a balance between anthropogenic
emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases. For the
lives of my people, Vanuatu cannot and will not accept unambitious
action in this regard that takes us into the end of the second part of
this century.
Vanuatu’s own Nationally Determined Contribution takes the highest
possible ambition of committing, with the support of developed country
partners, to transitioning to close to 100% renewable energy in the
electricity sector by 2030. This target would replace nearly all fossil
fuel requirements for electricity generation in the country and be
consistent with our own National Energy Road Map target of 65% total
renewable energy by 2020.
Mr. President,
In regards to the finance required to meet the challenges of
climate change, Vanuatu strongly supports the Agreement’s requirement
that developed countries must take the lead in the global effort to
mobilize climate finance from a wide variety of sources. Vanuatu will
be carefully monitoring and contributing to the climate finance
transparency mechanisms on support provided and received. Vanuatu
expects developed countries to exceed a floor of USD 100 billion per
year by 2020, and that this finance will be new and additional.
Mr. President,
For all of the hard-won positive outcomes in the Paris Agreement
that we sign today, there are elements of the Paris Agreement, as
outlined above, on which Vanuatu holds serious reservation. The real
challenge is in translating these commitments into action that is
transparent, accountable and effective enough to bring relief to the
vulnerable people of the world suffering the losses, damages and
negative impacts of climate change.
In Vanuatu we will continue to work to accelerate the widespread
implementation of climate adaptation and mitigation actions. Current
partnerships among Government, traditional authorities, the private
sector, civil society, faith-based organizations, development partners
and academia have saved the lives of our people when faced with climate
disasters like Cyclone Pam, and increased our resilience to cope with
the slow-onset impacts of climate change. Vanuatu’s Climate Change
& Disaster Risk Reduction Policy outlines the strategic priorities
our nation is undertaking, with all of its stakeholder, to reduce our
many vulnerabilities while simultaneously building a low carbon and
highly resilient and prosperous future for our people.
Mr. President,
In the spirit of international cooperation, and in the good faith
in which Vanuatu continues to engage with the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change, Vanuatu brings pen to paper of this Paris
Agreement.
Mr President,
Having concluded on an Agreement in Paris, we now need the same
collective commitment to bring the Paris Agreement into force.
Accordingly we call on all parties to engage and commit to this process
so we can move ahead and commence the implementation of the agreement
particularly the implementation of our individual NDCs in light of the
goals that we have agreed to in Paris. We look forward to partnering
with you all as we implement the Agreement and work towards a stock take
of our efforts, as agreed, after 5 years.
On this note, I leave you with a blessing of climate
peace and solidarity from Vanuatu “Bambae God i bringim pis long wol mo
klaemet blong yumi evriwan”.