I bring greetings from our President, Mr. Surangel S. Whipps Jr., and the people of Palau.
It is a great pleasure to be able to address the General Assembly and, at the outset, I wish to congratulate the President of the Assembly at its seventy-seventh session, Mr. Csaba Korosi, and pledge Palau’s support
during the course of his term. I also wish to thank the President of the General Assembly at its seventy-sixth session, a fellow islander — from Maldives — who was gracious enough to take the long journey to Palau during his term, Honourable Minister Abdulla Shahid, for his astute leadership over the course of the last year.
We meet at a precarious time. Thankfully, the world has made great strides in collectively combating the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The people of Palau thank all our international partners and friends who came to our aid during this difficult time, particularly the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Australia and others. The collaboration was successful in minimizing the impact of the pandemic in our small and vulnerable community.
Regrettably, while the world made great progress in pandemic recovery, new and unprecedented challenges have emerged. The war in Ukraine rages on, causing damage to infrastructure, homes, schools and cultural sites, killing innocent people and terrorizing the children of the country. Palau continues to strongly condemn the war in Ukraine and joins the international community in calling for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine’s sovereign territory. We also extend our prayers to and solidarity with the people of Ukraine.
While war may be viewed as a heart attack, the climate crisis has been like diabetes — insidious and wearing us down constantly and consistently year after year. I would like to take this opportunity to join fellow leaders to express my country’s deepest sympathy with our brothers and sisters in Pakistan and those impacted by Hurricane Fiona with respect to the awful climate devastation they have experienced. These catastrophes represent the unfortunate “new normal” for many in small island developing States.
Climate change is not only about hurricanes and floods. It is about droughts. It is about wildfires. It is about our ability to provide drinking water and feed our people when our lakes run dry and our aquaculture facilities and reefs are ravaged by typhoons. We face all of these challenges and more in Palau today. Our Government’s inability to buy our children new textbooks or improve their nutrition programmes is because so many of our fiscal resources and energy are dedicated to addressing disaster relief. How many times do the people of our island of Kayangel have to rebuild their homes from storms before they give up?
How many times, Mr. President, does your home have to be swept away before it breaks your spirit?
Despite the challenges of this last year, we have begun to see glimmers of hope in the fight against climate change. Youth, the private sector and civil service are more engaged than ever. Over 150,000 young people went up to Glasgow for the twenty-sixth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and provided much-needed pressure for leaders to take action, and after four failed Conferences of the Parties, the Glasgow Climate Pact was finally adopted. Even major emitting countries like the United States and Australia have finally passed significant legislation to shift their domestic policies. None of these efforts get us to 1.5°C yet, but they represent a great step forward, and we commend their efforts.
As the Russian-driven energy crisis has shown us, energy independence and renewable energy sources build resilience into our economies. Palau has felt the strain of skyrocketing energy costs, which is fuelling our ambition to achieve a 100 per cent transition to renewable energy. In Palau, we have a saying “Sel om tobed el mora buai, em chisngekl mesa blimT Translated, it is like the English saying, “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones”, meaning that before criticizing other people’s actions, one must look at one’s own.
It is in this spirit that our President, Mr. Surangel Whipps Jr., has committed to Palau making the transition to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2032. The message that we want to convey is clear: despite our small size, our remote location, our lack of access to financing and technology and the unique vulnerabilities of being a small island developing State (SIDS), we are committed to moving towards a net-zero carbon world. We are committed because our planet and our children need us all to be committed.
Palau extends its sincere thanks to the Government of Japan, which has committed a grant to help us update our country’s power grid to allow for the transition to renewables. We are grateful for Japan’s continued friendship and support.
Our small country had the pleasure of hosting the seventh Our Ocean Conference, together with the United States, in April of this year. The conference brought together more than 600 participants, representing more than 70 foreign delegations and 150 non-State actors. It
concluded with 410 commitments, worth $16.35 billion. As a SIDS, we thought that it was particularly important to bring people from all over the world to Palau to show them first-hand the challenges that we face as SIDS, whether it is plastic pollution, sea level rise or the impact on our fragile corals, which underpin our major economic driver of blue tourism. The conference also highlighted the importance of ocean-based climate solutions, including shipping decarbonization, marine nature-based solutions and offshore renewable energy, in keeping the 1.5°C global warming target within reach and improving global climate resilience.
We are incredibly grateful for the wonderful partnership of the United States in co-hosting the Our Ocean Conference, which was a success due, in large part, to its camaraderie and efforts. We also thank the Republic of China-Taiwan for its generosity and support in upgrading our conference venues. Likewise, we thank our partner Japan and the Sasakawa Foundation for their generosity and significant technical support. Many other partners also contributed to make the event a success for climate action.
As a blue ocean State, Palau has been the leader in oceans issues, and we will continue to be. As co-Chair of the High-level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy with Norway, we are pleased to have recently welcomed the United Kingdom as our seventeenth member of the ocean panel, and we are committed to working with it and all panel members to achieve 100 per cent ocean management for a sustainable ocean economy, in which effective protection, sustainable production and equitable prosperity go hand in hand. Palau believes in the 30 by 30 initiative, and we urge all Member States to adopt management plans with a minimum marine protected area covering 30 per cent of the exclusive economic zone.
As a large ocean State, we do not believe that there is a sustainable solution to ocean issues without incorporating management and rules in the high seas. The Pacific is disappointed that the efforts of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction could not conclude a treaty text, as the preservation and fair and equitable sharing of benefits of biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction is long overdue as an extension of the world’s commitment to combating climate change. The opportunity to establish regional marine protected areas, build more maritime surveillance capacity and facilitate the transfer of marine technology should not be further delayed. We owe it to our future generations to come together for the sustainable use of humankind’s common heritage.
Palau is a champion of the moratorium on deep- sea mining. The deep sea makes up 90 per cent of the marine environment, and we cannot allow great harm to come to such biologically rich areas. Before any nation is allowed to contract for deep-sea mining projects, the global community must enact serious reform of the International Seabed Authority and international regulations that comply with the mission of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to preserve and protect the marine environment.
Let me now turn to an issue that deeply impacts both Palau and SIDS. The adoption of a multidimensional vulnerability index cannot be discussed only in financial board rooms, for it has real impacts on the lives of island peoples. The multidimensional vulnerability index analysis by the United Nations Development Programme found that most SIDS are more vulnerable than their income level would suggest. We do not come here as a proud people asking for handouts. However, we need tailored solutions for our problems as small countries and meaningful access to financing. The adoption of the multidimensional vulnerability index facilitates climate action and can bring equity to global financing.
As members should know, we have a Compact of Free Association agreement with the United States. In doing so, our people signal that we have shared values with the United States. The United States also promised to help provide for our development needs after Palau gained independence from it. Since the time our Compact was signed, however, some development has occurred, but it is too little. Our economy has not grown sufficiently and is fragile, as demonstrated by a contraction of more than 30 per cent during the past five years. Much of that is due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but some to geopolitics. We should not be so vulnerable. We have been forced to borrow more than we should have to, and we lack essential infrastructure.
A strength of our association is that it requires the Governments of Palau and the United States to periodically reconsider the relationship and its terms and review Palau’s requirements for assistance for public services and economic development, and it commits both of our Governments to act on the conclusions.
The United States has initiated the required thirtieth anniversary review. Its bureaucracy initially proposed unacceptably inadequate assistance, but President Biden appointed an envoy who, we trust, will get his Government to at least meet Palau’s minimum needs so that our people can attain a decent standard of living without having to leave. That is essential to enabling the relationship to endure, as my Government envisions. It hopes that, when we next address the General Assembly, we will be able to report an agreement in that regard. We need greater financial and programmatic assistance and will require those for the foreseeable future and for as long as free association continues. But what we want most are Government measures and public and private investment to grow our economy.
We are deeply grateful for the assistance that the United States and other Governments, such as Taiwan and Japan, have provided, but we need more now, just as we need measures to combat and adapt to climate change’s rising seas. In our case, that includes concrete action to enable our people, and, right now, especially our hospital, to move from land that now regularly floods to a higher-elevation area.
We continue to view the United Nations as an important mechanism for achieving international peace and security and sustainable development for all countries, but, in particular, for the voiceless and the most vulnerable.
I reiterate in the strongest terms that this organ can demonstrate leadership by accepting Taiwan into the United Nations system as a valuable contributor to our collective efforts to promote peace and collaborate on international matters. Most States Members of the United Nations accept Taiwan passports; so, too, should the United Nations system recognize and incorporate the Taiwanese people and enrich this organ with the benefits of their participation. Doing so is a realization of the core principles of the Charter of the United Nations. The Taiwanese people are part of the global community and a valuable partner in combating climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. With the many challenges facing our planet and people, we need every person, including the 23 million people of Taiwan, to be part of the solutions.
When linguists studied our local Palauan language, they discovered that it was anchored in the word “heart”; beltik er reng, which translates as “found heart”, means love. We are a people and a culture who navigate with our hearts, and that is the message that I would like to leave Member States with today. Palau chooses love of self, love of neighbour, love of planet and love as a virtue. We believe that choosing love is our only way forward for collective peace and prosperity.
There is no profit sufficiently large to be worth the price of war or the destruction of our planet. Above all the highs and lows of this year, I trust that this institution will take away the importance of unity and respect for the rule of law. We are capable of overcoming the immense challenges of our time, but we must do so together.