General Assembly Session 62 meeting 83

The Acting President

I now call on Mr. Thomas Matussek, Permanent Representative of Germany.

Mr. Matussek (Germany)

Let me start by expressing our great appreciation for the fact that President Srgjan Kerim convened this very timely discussion in the General Assembly. We must maintain the high level of attention and awareness that we managed to build up during the course of last year.

Germany fully aligns itself with the statement made at the 80th meeting by Slovenian Environment Minister Janez Podobnik on behalf of the European Union (EU).

2007 was a year of unprecedented political momentum to fight climate change. The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have made it crystal-clear: the impact of climate change will be dramatic until and unless we take resolute action.

Germany is proud to have taken the lead during our EU Presidency, in spring 2007, to prepare ground-breaking decisions at the EU level on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. As host of the Group of Eight (G-8) Summit held in Heiligendamm, we set further milestones, in particular a clear commitment to the United Nations climate process. Our leaders confirmed that commitment almost uniformly at the Secretary-General's High-level Event on 24 September. And in Bali, we successfully launched a negotiating process to be completed by 2009 with a new global and comprehensive post-2012 agreement. One thing was clear: the United Nations system is the appropriate multilateral framework through which the necessary future climate change regime can be established.

We industrialized countries have to remain the driving force. This is a question of both fairness and credibility. We, the industrialized countries, have to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by between 25 and 40 per cent from 1990 levels, as stipulated by the IPCC.

The European Union is willing to reduce its greenhouse emissions by 30 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, within the framework of an international agreement. In this case, we, Germany, will even commit to a 40 per cent reduction. The German Government adopted an integrated climate and energy policy plan in 2007. Its key elements are energy efficiency and renewables. Let me just highlight the following aspects.

We will massively expand renewable sources of energy. In the electricity sector, we will double the share of renewables by 2020 from the current level of 14 per cent, and we are aiming at a 14 per cent share in the heat sector. We will raise standards for energy efficiency in buildings by 30 per cent by 2009 and by another 30 per cent after 2012. More than $2.3 billion per year will be made available for the modernization of energy systems in buildings.

We remain convinced that a climate-friendly restructuring of our economies is both possible and affordable. Ambitious climate policy does not constitute an obstacle to economic and sustainable growth. On the contrary, climate protection makes sound economic sense. It is a driving force for innovation and employment. In Germany, every billion euros spent on energy-saving modernization of existing buildings secures or creates approximately 25,000 jobs in the building and crafts sector. Over the past 10 years, approximately 214,000 jobs have been created in the renewables sector, with 60,000 of them in the wind-energy sector alone.

In the global efforts to address climate change, the role of the private sector is universally recognized. The question of public-private partnerships, which has been raised in our panel discussions, is crucial. Global action makes climate efforts more cost-efficient, and more can be achieved with the same levels of investment.

Climate change is, first and foremost, a sustainable development challenge. Without a stable climate and adequate knowledge of future climate change trends, we may not achieve the Millennium Development Goals. But climate change is even more than that: it is the most universal and most comprehensive of problems. For some countries, as we have heard, it is a matter of sheer existence; it affects areas such as health, security, migration and nutrition.

Germany will continue to support all international efforts to counter the adverse effects of climate change and to reach a global agreement. But only a United Nations-based framework can make it possible for the voices of all countries to be heard and considered. Only the United Nations system can address the complementary challenges of development and climate change in a coherent manner.

The United Nations system needs to respond on the basis of a coherent strategic vision, setting out common goals and priorities and clearly showing the comparative advantage of United Nations entities in tackling climate change. The report of the Secretary-General (A/62/644) serves as a useful beginning for that process. It clearly states that the United Nations needs to be more than merely the sum of its parts. The real challenge is to efficiently and effectively develop and implement integrated policies. The whole United Nations system must strengthen its response to global challenges and must ensure that that response comes in a united voice.

In the future, the financing of mitigation and adaptation efforts as well as technology transfer will be the key issue. Those areas require new and innovative concepts. As the interactive panel discussions have shown, the United Nations should serve as the key forum by bringing together various stakeholders from private and public sectors. The United Nations system needs to enhance networking capacities and coordination for joint international action. Therefore, if the United Nations is best suited to tackle the pressing issue of climate change, it must intensify cooperation across the system in order to meet that challenge.

As Chancellor Merkel pointed out here in New York last September (see A/62/PV.5), climate change will be the litmus test of the international community's ability to act efficiently and effectively in the twenty-first century. The United Nations is at the heart of that process. Germany is willing to do its share. We are looking forward to cooperating with all partners within the United Nations.

The Acting President

I now call on Mr. Aysar Tayeb, representative of Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Tayeb (Saudi Arabia)

I should like to thank you, Sir, and through you to thank Mr. Srgjan Kerim, President of the General Assembly, for convening this meeting and for the continuous attention that the United Nations is devoting to the issue of climate change.

I would like to associate myself with the statements made by the Permanent Representative of Antigua and Barbuda on behalf of the Group of 77 and China at the 80th meeting and by the Permanent Representative of Algeria on behalf of the Arab Group at the 81st.

Saudi Arabia shares the world's concern about climate change and the challenges it poses, and we are committed to working together towards finding the right solutions.

At the summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) held in Riyadh a couple of months ago, Saudi Arabia pledged $300 million to a new fund that will support research on energy, the environment and climate change. That pledge was complemented by pledges from Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, bringing the sum to $750 million. Many other efforts have been made at the national level, but time does not permit going into greater detail here. I will just say, however, that we are committed to doing our fair share.

On Monday, we heard very useful presentations and discussions from experts. The ideas that have been crystallizing from the discussion include the important role of partnerships and the full engagement of the private sector and civil society. Another idea has to do with the great connections between climate change and development. Development and climate change are linked and need to be viewed together.

Less than a year ago, here in New York the Commission on Sustainable Development was deliberating on climate change and on energy for sustainable development. An obvious fact that became crystal clear was that energy is a main prerequisite for development.

In order to meet the objectives of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in addressing the challenges of climate change without hindering the development process, we must find practical solutions that achieve the required emission reductions while keeping the energy cycle on its steady path, in order to meet the growing energy needs required for development. In that regard, we need to be careful to ensure that mitigation actions do not create market distortions that would lead to instability of energy supplies and disrupt the development process. Technological solutions such as carbon capture and storage provide win-win solutions and a positive way forward.

I would like now to address the Bali Road Map. In Bali, we reached an important agreement, which did not in any way imply that Kyoto is dead or over, or that the Climate Change Convention is no longer any good. That is why I am surprised by some of the statements I have heard alluding to such a notion. Yes, action to address climate change is lagging. But that is not because there is a deficiency in the Convention or in the Kyoto Protocol; the deficiency has been in the implementation of the commitments made under these agreements.

In Bali, we have reached an agreement on a detailed timetable for the remaining work of the Ad Hoc Working Group under the Kyoto Protocol, which will agree on ambitious new targets for industrial countries for the Kyoto Protocol's second commitment period, targets that will hopefully be met this time.

In Bali, we also reached an agreement "to launch a comprehensive process to enable the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention through long-term cooperative action, now, up to and beyond 2012". It is not an agreement to replace or supersede the Convention or any of its existing principles.

We have agreed to step up contributions from developing countries with actions to be taken in the context of sustainable development. These actions will be measurable, reportable and verifiable. They will also have to be enabled and supported by measurable, reportable and verifiable technology and by financing and capacity-building. And it is not as if developing countries were incapable of taking those actions without the Bali agreement or any other subsequent agreement; the problem is that the tools to enable developing countries to do so were never made available to them.

This is the real challenge. It is the core of the climate change challenge and has always been. Our success through this year and next year will not lie in merely finding some consensus language and a text that we can all agree to. Our success will be in making breakthroughs in unlocking the toolbox and in obtaining the financing and technology required to really make a difference.

Almost all speakers here touched upon the risks of climate change and its negative impact. With the release of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I think this issue is no longer up for debate. However, in a few decades, when our children and grandchildren are reflecting on how successful the world was in facing the challenges of climate change, success will not be measured by agreements or treaties. It will be measured only by the tangible difference that we are able to make together.

The Acting President

I now give the floor to Mr. Stuart Beck, Permanent Representative of Palau.

Mr. Beck (Palau)

The waters continue to rise in Palau and everywhere else. Salinization of fresh water and formerly productive lands continues apace. The reefs, the foundation of our food chain, experience periodic bleaching and death. Throughout the Pacific, sea-level rise has not only generated plans for the relocation of populations; those relocations are actually in progress now. Although this litany of disasters has become well known in these halls, no remedial action has been taken. The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) raised this issue 20 years ago. Larger countries can build dikes and move to higher ground, but that is not feasible for the small island States, which must simply stand by and watch their cultures vanish.

We have to ask ourselves whether the United Nations is powerless to act in the face of this threat to the very existence of many of its Member States. Palau suggests that it is not.

The Assembly will recall that last April, under the presidency of the United Kingdom, the Security Council took up the issue of climate change. At that time, while there were some expressions of discomfort with the venue of that debate -- a discomfort that we decidedly did not share, I should say -- there was general agreement with the notion expressed by the then-President of the Council, United Kingdom Minister for Foreign Affairs Ms. Margaret Beckett, that climate change is a threat to "our collective security in a fragile and increasingly interdependent world" (S/PV.5663, p. 19).

Obviously, island States are not the only countries whose existence is threatened. At that very same debate, Ambassador Mbuende of Namibia characterized climate change as "a matter of life or death" for his country, and he observed that

"the developing countries in particular, have been subjected to what could be described as low-intensity biological or chemical warfare. Greenhouse gases are slowly destroying plants, animals and human beings" (S/PV.5663, p. 31).

Speaking on behalf of the Pacific Island Forum at that Security Council debate, Ambassador Robert Aisi of Papua New Guinea, whom we heard this morning, observed that climate change is no less a threat to small island States than guns and bombs are to larger countries. Pacific Island countries are likely to face massive dislocations of people, similar to flows sparked by conflict. Such circumstances will generate as much resentment, hatred and alienation as any refugee crisis.

Ambassador Aisi observed then, and we reiterate now, that it is the Security Council that is charged with protecting human rights and the integrity and security of the Member States. The Security Council is empowered to make decisions on behalf of all States to take action on threats to international peace and security. While we heartily applaud the efforts of the President of the General Assembly and the Secretary-General to shine a light on this awful problem, we take this opportunity to respectfully call upon the Security Council to react to the threat that we describe. Would any nation facing an invading army not do the same? Under Article 39 of the Charter, it is the Security Council's obligation to determine the existence of any threat to peace and to make recommendations to maintain or restore international peace and security. We call upon the Security Council to do so in the context of climate change.

Under Articles 40 and 41 of the Charter, it is the obligation of the Security Council to prevent an aggravation of the situation and to devise appropriate measures to be carried out by all States to that end. While we small island States do not have all the answers, we are not unmindful of the obvious scientific certainty that excessive greenhouse gas emissions by States are the cause of this threat to international security and to the existence of many Member States. We therefore suggest that the Security Council consider the imposition of mandatory emissions caps on all States and use its power to sanction in order to encourage compliance.

We recall that, under Article 11 of the Charter, the General Assembly is empowered to call to the attention of the Security Council "situations which are likely to endanger international peace and security". At the appropriate time, we will call upon the Assembly to do so. In the event that the General Assembly chooses not to exercise the right to refer the matter to the Security Council, we will humbly call upon the countries whose very existence is threatened to utilize Article 34 of the Charter, which empowers every Member State to bring to the attention of the Security Council any issue "which might lead to international friction". I think we can all agree that "international friction" is a very mild term to describe the terrible plight in which the island nations now find themselves.

Our Charter provides a way forward. Our Security Council has the wisdom and the tools to address this situation. And while we debate, the waters are rising.

The Acting President

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