Let me begin by adding my
voice to the many salutations directed to Mr. Ban
Ki-moon on being elected as the Secretary-General of
the United Nations. I wish him a fruitful tenure of
office, trusting that through his work the poor of the
world will have good reason to increase their
confidence in this Organization of the nations of the
world.
Again, I reiterate the many thanks to Her
Excellency Ms. Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, for the good
work she did as the President of the General Assembly
at its sixty-first session. Equally, my congratulations go
to Mr. Srgjan Kerim on his election as the President of
the General Assembly at its sixty-second session.
We meet here today, under the theme of
responding to climate change, at this session, which
marks the half-way point in the freely agreed period
during which the nations of the world committed
themselves to work, individually and collectively, to
achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Billions of the people of the world know as a
matter of fact that the consequences of climate
change be it droughts, floods or unpredictable and
extreme weather patterns undermine our common
efforts to achieve the MDGs. Today, we all understand
that the costs of doing nothing about climate change far
outweigh those of taking concrete measures to address
this challenge. It is clear that delaying action on this
matter of climate change will hit poor countries and
communities hardest. Yet the pace of climate change
negotiations is out of step with the urgency indicated
by science.
I would therefore urge that we collectively aim
for a significant advance in the multilateral
negotiations when our negotiators meet in Bali in
December this year. Together, we must ensure that we
build a fair, effective, flexible and inclusive climate
regime under the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol,
and we must agree to this as a matter of urgency.
Though we have different responsibilities, and
developed countries clearly have an obligation to take
the lead, we all have a common duty to do more and
act within our respective capabilities and in accordance
with our national circumstances.
The World Summit on Sustainable Development
correctly reaffirmed sustainable development as a
central element of the global action against poverty and
the protection of the environment and identified
important linkages between poverty, the environment
and the use of natural resources. These linkages are
real to billions of the poor; the combination of their
empty stomachs, their degraded environment and their
exploited natural resources, for which they benefit
nothing, defines hopelessness and a heart-wrenching
existence.
Many of these wretched of the Earth know from
their bitter experience how their resource-rich areas
were transformed into arid, uninhabitable and desolate
areas forcing migration to better-endowed regions, thus
exacerbating conflicts and the struggle for scarce
resources.
Gathered here as representatives of the peoples of
the world, we know very well that climate change,
poverty and underdevelopment are not acts of God but
human-made.
Clearly, the starting point for a future climate
regime must be equity. A core balance between
sustainable development and climate imperatives will
have to be the basis of any agreement on a
strengthened climate regime. Any deal on fair use of
the ecological space will have to be balanced by a deal
giving all countries a fair chance in the development
space.
Under the aegis of the United Nations, but also
within our regional bodies, we have adopted many
programmes and declarations, with clear
implementation targets aimed at addressing the
challenges of climate change, poverty and
underdevelopment. As this conclave knows very well,
the many lofty agreements include, among others,
those adopted at the Rio Earth Summit, the
Copenhagen Social Summit, the Millennium Summit,
the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the
Monterrey International Conference on Financing for
Development. At all these summits and others, we have
adopted declarations using moving and solemn words
that express our profound understanding of the gravity
of the challenges facing the modern world and have
unequivocally committed ourselves to defeating any
and all of the miserable and dehumanizing conditions
facing large parts of humanity.
Indeed, this collective asserted, in paragraph 11
of the Millennium Declaration (resolution 55/2):
“We will spare no effort to free our fellow
men, women and children from the abject and
dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty. ...
We are committed to making the right to
development a reality for everyone and to freeing
the entire human race from want.”
Yet the poor, whose hopes have been raised many times
as we have made declaration after declaration against
poverty and underdevelopment and as we are doing
now on climate change can be forgiven for thinking
that this important global leadership often sounds like
an empty vessel.
That this collective is able to express, always
eloquently, the dire circumstances characterizing
poverty is without doubt. However, this Organization,
which should pride itself on visible actions and results
in the fight against climate change and poverty, finds it
difficult to demonstrate decisive progress in that
regard. The reasons for that are not hard to find.
Although the concepts of freedom, justice and equality
are universal and fully embraced by the United
Nations, this global Organization has not itself
transformed and designed necessary institutions of
governance that are consistent with the noble ideals
that drive modern democratic societies.
Because the nations of the world are defined by
the dominant and the dominated, the dominant have
always become the decision-makers in the important
global forums, including at this seat of global
governance. Accordingly, the skewed distribution of
world power political, economic, military,
technological and social replicates itself in
multilateral institutions, much to the disadvantage of
the majority of the poor people of the world.
Indeed, even as we agree on the important
programmes that should bring a better life to the
billions of poor, the rich and the powerful have
consistently sought to ensure that, whatever happens,
the existing power relations are not altered and
therefore that the status quo remains. The results of
that situation are that the United Nations can and does
correctly identify problems and appropriate solutions
necessary for making the world a better place for all of
humanity. Naturally, the dominant and the powerful
very often respond positively to agreed programmes if
these would advance their own narrow interests.
At the same time, the poor will continue to strive
for improvement of their wretched conditions. They
therefore see the United Nations as a natural
instrument for helping to accelerate the process of
change for the better. Hence, they correctly see
implementation of all United Nations programmes as
being central to the efforts relating to climate change
and the struggle against poverty and
underdevelopment.
Yet the cold reality is that it will be difficult for
the United Nations, in its present form, to fully
implement its own decisions and therefore to help the
poor to swiftly achieve the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). Indeed, until the ideals of freedom,
justice and equality characterize this premier world
body itself, the dominant will forever dictate to the
dominated, and the interests of the dominated which
are those of the majority of humanity will be
deferred in perpetuity. Thus, noble statements will
continue to be uttered on all matters facing the
majority of the people of the world, such as the need to
successfully conclude the Doha Development Round,
while little is done to implement the many critical
agreements necessary to pull the poor out of the morass
of poverty and underdevelopment.
We in my own country are of the firm belief that
we will achieve the MDGs. Having emerged from more
than three centuries of colonialism and apartheid, we
inherited two interlinked economies, which we
characterize as the first and second economies. The
two economies one developed and globally
connected and the other localized and informal
display many features of a global system of apartheid.
As South Africans, we have sought to strengthen the
first economy and to use it as a base for the transfer of
resources to strengthen and modernize the second
economy, and thus embark on the process of changing
the lives of those who subsist in the second economy.
Indeed, without the requisite resource transfers, it
will not be possible to achieve the MDGs, because our
second economy cannot on its own generate the
resources needed to bring a better life to millions of
poor South Africans. I mention this because, as we all
accept, central to the global attainment of the MDGs is
the critical matter of resource transfers from the rich
countries of the North to the poor countries of the
South.
Many developing countries especially those of
my own continent, Africa do not have the material
base from which to address and attain the MDGs on
their own. Accordingly, there is an urgent need for
massive resource transfers through development
assistance, investment, trade, technology transfers and
human resource development to these poor countries if
we are to achieve the MDGs and successfully adapt to
the devastating impacts of climate change.
If we do not succeed in building a climate change
regime that balances adaptation and mitigation,
underpinned by the transfer of technology and financial
resources, we will place an unmanageable burden on
future generations. In that regard, given Africa’s
specific and dire challenges, we believe it is important
to enter into a partnership with Africa using the African
Union’s programme the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD), which the Assembly has
adopted, so that the measures that the continent has
undertaken, with limited resources, for the regeneration
of all the African countries can be strengthened by
support from the international community, guided by
the programmes of the United Nations.
As history teaches us, it was because of the
massive resource transfers in the aftermath of the
Second World War that Western Europe recovered and
was set on its development path. A similar intervention
helped to put a number of Asian countries on their own
development trajectory. The question we should ask is,
why is there an absence of the same resolve to assist
poor nations today? The global village to which we
constantly refer should encourage us to expand human
solidarity. Thus, we would build a durable bridge over
the river dividing our common global village and
regrettably ensuring that one human being lives a
fulfilling life while another experiences a miserable
existence.
Representing the citizens of the world, we have
set for ourselves programmes requiring that all of us
work together to create better living conditions for
humanity and ensure that we achieve that which is
necessary for our mutual prosperity.
Together, rich and poor, developed and
developing, North and South, we can and must truly
hold hands and address the challenges of climate
change and sustainable development, work together to
defeat poverty and underdevelopment and ensure that
every human being is saved from the indecencies and
humiliations that are inseparable from poverty. But to
do that, we need first and foremost to implement the
decisions that we have adopted freely in this eminent
house of the representatives of the global community.
And so, let our actions speak louder than our words.