I bring everyone warm greetings
from the people of Kiribati, on whose behalf I am once
again privileged to address this body. In my country we
begin all formal addresses by conferring blessings of
peace and good health on all present, so let me say Kam
na bane ni Mauri.
I echo the sentiments conveyed by previous
speakers in congratulating the President on assuming
the presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-
ninth session. I am confident that under his able
stewardship, our Organization will continue its work
towards improving the security and quality of life for
all members of our global community, in particular
the most vulnerable. Let me also take this opportunity
to acknowledge with appreciation the commendable
leadership of his predecessor, Mr. John Ashe, for his
guidance and stewardship over the past year.
I also wish to commend the unwavering commitment
and hard work of our Secretary-General, Mr. Ban
Ki-moon, who has served as an able navigator of our
family’s ship, steering the United Nations through
the diverse and complex realities and the myriad of
challenges facing our peoples and nations around the
world. In particular, I wish to commend his sterling
leadership and demonstrated personal commitment to
the need to focus global attention on those who are most
vulnerable and who are on the front line of the many
major challenges facing us today as a global community.
We meet at a very critical time in the history of
multilateralism. The global community is in the process
of shaping a post-2015 development framework. We
are hearing stronger calls for United Nations reforms,
for reassessing the way we do things in our family of
nations. The membership is calling for a move away
from business as usual and for transformational
changes. We welcome the theme of the sixty-ninth
session — “Delivering on and implementing a
transformative post-2015 development agenda” — as it
aptly captures the call for changes by the membership.
Earlier this week, on Tuesday, we concluded one of
the most successful conferences ever convened by the
Secretary-General on climate change. We applaud the
leadership and the Secretary-General’s very positive
initiative. Those of us on the front line of the impacts
of climate change welcome the renewed focus and the
rallying by the United Nations membership behind the
Secretary-General’s call for ambitious announcements
and commitments. The real challenge, however, is
in being able to translate those commitments and
announcements into action.
Three weeks ago, Samoa hosted the Third
International Conference on Small Island Developing
States. The United Nations and those who attended
declared it a resounding success. We thank our gracious
hosts — the Government and the people of Samoa.
Those very successful conferences signify recognition
by the United Nations and the membership of the need
to highlight the special case of those on the front line
of sustainable development, to refocus global attention
to the prevailing socioeconomic and environmental
challenges that continue to constrain efforts by small
island developing States (SIDS) to achieve sustainable
development. That is particularly pertinent now, as the
international community is in the process of shaping
the post-2015 development agenda.
The Small Island Developing States Accelerated
Modalities of Action provides a clear blueprint of
how the SIDS want to move forward in their efforts
to achieve sustainable development. The real test of
the success of the Samoa Conference, however, is in
the adoption of outcomes into genuine and durable
partnerships that can translate into activities on the
ground that will deliver tangible benefits to our people.
While SIDS heard the plight of some of the most
vulnerable, other United Nations processes are talking
about the graduation of those countries from the least
developed countries category. We believe that there is
a contradiction here. If we as a family of nations do
not act and do not work in partnership with those on
the front line of major challenges, whatever they may
be, then we will have failed in our efforts. I would like
to reiterate our deepest appreciation to the Secretary-
General for his demonstrated commitment and
leadership in focusing the United Nations and global
attention on the plight of the most needy, in alleviating
poverty, addressing the Ebola epidemic, raising the
voices of youth and women and their participation in
development, ending gender-based violence, promoting
peace and security, and acting against climate change
now.
As I have highlighted on numerous occasions
in the past, including earlier this week, the issue
of climate change remains the most single pressing
challenge for us in Kiribati. Climate change is an
existential challenge for low-lying island countries like
mine, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, the Maldives and
Tokelau, and I again call for urgent global action to
help those countries adapt and for international legally
binding commitments to cut greenhouse emissions.
The global community cannot afford to not listen to our
stories and to the plight of our peoples. Our plight is the
plight of the global community, further down the line.
Everyone’s future is on the line.
I have just returned from an Arctic expedition, to
the North Pole — hence, my loss of voice. I am still
overwhelmed today by what I witnessed with my own
eyes. The melting of the massive sheets of ice in the
Arctic region due to climate change will not only have
severe impacts on the lives of people in that region but
will also result in the demise of future generations in
other parts of the globe, in particular our most vulnerable
atoll island nations. It has been an eye-opener for me
to spend time in the past week in polar conditions. It
gave me a wider perspective of the immensity of what
is at stake beyond our own immediate concerns. That
visit to the Arctic region highlighted the stark reality
of the very direct connection between the destruction
of that polar region to what is happening to us in the
equatorial region, and the very unlikely possibility of
ever reversing that process once it has gone so far.
On Tuesday we heard the voice of a very talented
young woman, Ms. Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, a poet from
our part of the world, from the Marshall Islands. Her
voice represents the apprehension, the concern and the
voice of mothers from low-lying countries like ours
who lament what the future holds for their children
and their children’s children. Surely, we as leaders and
the mothers like Kathy and millions of others around
the world share, or should share, the same ultimate
goal — to leave to our children and grandchildren a
future that is better than what we inherited from our
forefathers. We from Kiribati salute Kathy for reaching
out and for touching the hearts of leaders who heard
her speak. May she touch many hearts and move many
more hearts.
The very sad reality is that we are just not on
course to achieve that. It is glaringly obvious that
we need to do things differently. We owe it to those
whom we represent — our people. For us, climate
change is not an event in the future. It is an event that
we are dealing with today. We simply cannot talk of
sustainable development without talking about climate
change. Earlier this week, I appealed to fellow leaders,
and will do so again today, for all of us to work together
against climate change and to move towards binding
international agreements, towards a clean energy
future, a healthier greener future for our children and a
healthier, greener home for our one planet, Earth.
What are we doing? Let us accept full responsibility
for our own development to improve the well-being of
our people into the future. We are determined to achieve
that by finding national solutions to overcome the
enormous development challenges that constrain our
efforts. My Government has mainstreamed sustainable
development principles into our national development
plan, policies and strategies. Climate change and
adaptation measures are integrated into our national
budgeting process and development programmes to
strengthen disaster risk management. We have adopted
an inclusive, whole-of-government and whole-of-nation
approach aimed at addressing climate change impacts
and strengthening our resilience.
Our strategy for migration with dignity is an
investment in the education of our people and upping
the skills of our young population to equip them with
the educational qualifications and employable skills
that will enable them to migrate with dignity to other
countries as a matter of choice and, in the worst-case
scenario, when our islands can no longer sustain human
life.
Last July, along with other frontline low-lying atoll
island States — Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, Maldives
and Tokelau — Kiribati initiated the establishment of
the Coalition of Low-lying Atoll Nations on Climate
Change (CANCC). The Coalition held its inaugural
meeting in Tarawa in July and produced an outcome
document that embraces the Coalition’s goals and
vision for building the resilience of our people in the
face of the challenges of climate change. The initiative
is prompted by the concerns we share regarding the
increasing severity of those challenges and the slow
pace of global action to address them. Our Coalition of
nations continues to support the ongoing negotiations
under the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change, but we also emphasize that urgent
action must be taken now to assist our countries and
all vulnerable communities to adapt to the impacts of
climate change.
The Coalition initiative demonstrates our political
commitment and determination to find innovative
solutions to the threats we face from climate change.
We are looking at building up our low islands and
climate-proofing our infrastructure, and at our
development efforts to prepare and build the resilience
of our people in the face of the challenge.
We cannot do this alone, and we acknowledge the
support of our development partners and regional and
international organizations that have assisted us and
continue to support our efforts to address the challenge
of climate change. However, much more remains to be
done, including making climate-financing facilities
more accessible and flexible, as the solutions and
options for facing this challenge vary from nation to
nation.
The ocean plays a pivotal role in the sustainable
development of my country. Our vision for achieving
sustainable development hinges on the blue
economy — on the conservation and sustainable
management of our marine and ocean resources.
While we in Kiribati have been labelled a small
island developing State, we are in fact a “large ocean”
State that spans an ocean area of 3.5 million square
kilometres. The ocean has been an integral part of
our life since time immemorial. While it now poses a
serious threat to our survival from sea-level rise, it also
provides immense opportunities, not only as a source
of daily sustenance, but also as a means through which
we can realize sustainable development and achieve
livelihoods for our people.
Our exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is one of the
largest in the world and is home to abundant tuna
resources that provide rich fishing grounds for our
distant fishing partners. We estimate that the total
annual landed value of the fisheries industry in our
EEZ is approximately $4 billion. Yet only 5 to 8 per
cent of that comes to us as resource owners, through
licensing fees. We have to ask, where is the equity and
fairness in that?
There is a need to review and restructure the
nature of public and private partnerships in the fishing
industry. A more equitable partnership based on mutual
respect, goodwill, fairness and accountability will go
a long way in providing an enabling environment for
sustainable development.
My Government is working to maximize the returns
from our large fisheries resource through value-adding
fisheries development, including on-shore processing.
Our limited capacity in terms of capital, technical
know-how, a lack of infrastructure, distance from
commercial and trade centres and air and sea transport
challenges stands in the way of our progress towards
that development aspiration. Direct foreign investment
and genuine partnership are therefore a way forward
in that regard. I am confident that such partnership,
forged around an equitable distribution of gains, will
be the development model going forward, with mutual
gains to be made.
Human activities have been responsible for the
accelerated degradation of our global environment, in
the pursuit of short-term economic gains without due
regard to the health of our oceans and our environment.
Never in human history has the health of our oceans
and planet Earth been so challenged. We all have a
shared responsibility and obligation with regard to the
protection of the ocean from further degradation and
the sustainable management of its rich biodiversity.
My country recognizes that shared responsibility
and, in 2008, established the Phoenix Islands Protected
Area (PIPA) in partnership with Conservation
International and the New England Aquarium.
UNESCO has inscribed PIPA on its list of World
Heritage Sites. In January 2015, we will completely
close off the Phoenix Islands Protected Area to all
commercial fishing activity across an area of more than
410,000 square kilometres, representing 11 per cent of
our total EEZ — about the size of the state of California.
PIPA is a rich fishing ground, so its total closure
on 31 December this year will entail loss of much-
needed revenue for Kiribati from fishing licence fees.
For us, it is a major but necessary short-term sacrifice
for the long-term health of our ocean and for sustaining
fish stocks for global food security. It demonstrates
our political commitment to the importance of marine
conservation and the sustainable management of marine
resources. It is our contribution to humankind and the
common good of all.
But the announcement of complete closure of this
vast marine protected area will amount to nothing
without monitoring and enforcement. We have therefore
established a PIPA trust fund to support our national
efforts in managing PIPA and monitoring that vast
marine protected area. We thank those who share our
vision and have contributed to the fund. We encourage
our partners who have not yet done so to join with us in
that massive undertaking.
The challenges we face in the twenty-first century
have taken on a new dimension. It is no longer a fight
to save a species here and a collapsed stock there;
the fight has become larger. It is now about how to
ensure the survival of whole peoples — communities,
villages, cities and nations. Entire ecosystems hang in
the balance, the ecosystems that provide us with the air
we breathe, the water we drink and much of the food we
eat. It is time to view our global development in a whole
new way. It is time to change business as usual. Indeed,
a paradigm shift and transformational development
approaches are necessary, starting from within our own
nations and moving out to regional and international
multilateral processes, institutions and partnerships.
It is high time we recognize that the new challenges
require that we draw on all the resources available to the
global community. Development and global challenges
do not belong to Governments alone. Let us bring in our
youth, our women, civil society, the private sector and
our traditional institutions. Let us be inclusive. Let all
those who have a contribution to make make it.
We welcome the inclusion of Taiwan in the
international processes of the World Health Assembly.
We hope that a similar inclusive approach will prevail
in respect of our other international institutions and the
United Nations processes, where Taiwan and all those
that can participate and contribute meaningfully for the
good of humankind can be brought in to do so.
We join in the broad international condemnation
of criminal extremism and express the hope that such
destabilizing tensions in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region
and elsewhere can be settled through peaceful means.
As distant as we think we are from the epicentres of
such events, they nonetheless impact on us in a very
real way in our part of the world.
In my country, even before the advent of climate
change, the atoll environment was indeed harsh. Life
on the low-lying atoll islands has always been difficult.
We have always worked on the principle of working
together as part of a community on the premise that
there will be some challenges that are larger than us and
need collaboration. The age-old test of our resilience
and our strength as a community is defined by the well-
being of the weakest member of our community. For us,
sustainable development must be inclusive. It requires
sincerity, goodwill, respect and the willingness to move
a little more slowly so as to assist and bring everyone
on board in order to move forward together.
I would like to bring those principles to the United
Nations. The pursuit of sustainable development
and lasting peace and security calls for and requires
sacrifice. It requires inclusiveness. It requires
collective and decisive action. It also requires political
commitment and political leadership from all of us
here, for the time to act is now.
On that note, I leave members with the traditional
blessing: may health, peace and prosperity be with us
all.