Let us bow our heads together and beseech God Almighty to let His peace and mercy descend on us all and on our fragile home — the planet. I extend to all the warmest greetings of lakwe from the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
I congratulate the President on his election to lead the General Assembly. I also offer sincere condolences for the devastating flood in Libya and the earthquake in Morocco.
A strong and effective United Nations is needed now more than ever. Together we now face an economic shock, increasing global tension and intensified climate impacts. Our United Nations was forged to help maintain peace, reduce threats and conflict and address the economic and social challenges facing humankind. It has also served a useful purpose as a key platform for dialogue among nations, and we acknowledge the strong efforts of the United Nations system in humanitarian relief and assistance with development goals. Yet the world is at an hour when, more than ever before, we are falling well short of what the world needs and deserves.
The world is now vastly different from that of 78 years ago. The remarkable advances in all spheres of human life have been phenomenal and unrivalled. New advances have facilitated people-to-people connectivity and help to shrink our planet into a small global village. Yet we are feeling an intense rise in the very global tensions, if not the threat of wider conflict, that the founding Members sought to avert. Politics must never blind the need for accountability, not only in Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine but everywhere, without exception.
Every nation in this Hall, including my own. has more to do to deliver on our human rights records. Far greater understanding and direct assistance are needed to better address complex rights situations. Every nation gathered in this Hall bears a vital responsibility to protect, not overstep, the voices of the most vulnerable.
As a candidate country for election to the Human Rights Council for the term from 2025 to 2027. we are firmly committed to strong and credible action, as well as to listening closely to all perspectives. We are proud to call attention to the recent endorsement of our candidacy by the Pacific Islands Forum Foreign Ministers.
The Pacific small island developing States are truly large ocean nations before we are small island developing States. Oceans are not a distant notion. They are our lifeblood, our economic future, our food security and our culture. Much of the rest of the world has used oceans as dumping grounds or resource baskets from which to take at will, without consequence.
Now the tide is changing. Pacific island nations help to set the mark in global tuna markets and affect a transition to sustainability. Our partners are helping us to step up with resources, partnerships and real-time technology to better monitor and patrol our vast exclusive economic zones.
The United Nations has now adopted a new high seas conservation treaty that addresses biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction. At a time when nations are increasingly challenged to work together on the basics, it is a testament to the political will and diplomatic skill in which we have come together to cut across silos and define specific actions and obligations to try to better ensure that future generations see the same benefits from the ocean that we know today. It is our challenge to the world to bring that treaty into force and effect before the 2025 Our Oceans Conference. Today the United Nations now has my signature on the treaty to add to the growing chorus.
The world’s equilibrium has been upset by humankind’s insatiable greed for the accumulation of materialistic wealth and possessions. Today the Marshall Islands is encountering insurmountable challenges in coping with sea level rise, the erosion of shorelines, flooding caused by high tides, coral bleaching, the intrusion of seawater into taro and crop lands and the rapid deterioration of the ocean ecological system. Moreover, the warming of the ocean has affected sustainable coastal fisheries and has had a direct negative impact on our way of life. In sum. our islands, our culture, our way of life and our very existence as a people and a nation are threatened.
We call for the establishment of an international financing facility to provide assistance and support to small island developing States and low-lying atoll nations and territories devastated during and after natural disasters. Such a facility should also offer elements of insulation from external shocks, be it energy, supply-chain disruptions, food security, global health pandemics, hyperinflation or other challenges.
The Marshall Islands leaders have raised the alarm and called the world’s attention to the dangers posed by the climate change monster since we became a Member of this body in 1991. For more than 30 years. Marshallese leaders, as is the case with leaders of low- lying island States, have sounded the alarm in every international and regional forum. For more than 30 years, the world has been meeting and talking about the adverse effect of global warming and climate change. We hailed the historic conclusion of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. However, eight years have gone by. carbon emission levels remain high and the planet is getting hotter with each passing day. As a matter of fact, the Secretary-General himself has affirmed that the era of global warming has ended and that now we have entered the age of global boiling. May I again reiterate my humble call for the world to declare war on climate change.
The future of the Marshall Islands and all low-lying island States hangs in the balance. The eyes of people the world over are on us at this seventy-eighth session of the General Assembly. The Marshall Islands believes that the time for speeches and eloquence of talk is over. It is time for the eloquence of actions. Let deeds, not words, be our operating principle.
The security of our own islands is at stake, owing to not only the tension among super-Powers. but also rising seas and changing oceans. The world has spent a full generation falling short in our common goals to prevent dangerous climate change. We are past the hour of waiting for a real step-up in ambition. This year must be different. At the twenty-eighth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the global stocktake must mark the turning point at which we all recognize that we are collectively failing to deliver on the Paris Agreement. We must all respond by agreeing upon a clear road map to correct our course. That ambitious road map must include the phase-out of fossil fuels. The world cannot afford to further ignore the issue at the heart of the crisis.
While we must use every tool at our disposal, we cannot place our hope in dreams of unproven, untested solutions or use abatement technology to give the green light to the continued expansion of fossil fuels. For the most vulnerable nations, adequate, predictable and accessible finance is crucial, particularly for adapting to prepare for the current and future onslaught of the impacts of climate change and to address the loss and damage that are already being experienced. We need donors to deliver on their existing commitments and to come together to address the climate finance crisis in a way that is led by science and the needs of vulnerable States.
Those challenges may be inconvenient for large economies, but I can affirm that the climate impacts already at our door, and those yet to come are decidedly more inconvenient for low-lying atoll States such as mine and for other island nations around the world.
The United States has not fulfilled its obligations to the people of the Marshall Islands resulting from the nuclear testing programme. On 25 November 1947. in response to concerns about the people of Enewetak.
who were being removed and relocated so that the United States could conduct its nuclear-weapons test. United States President Harry S. Truman stated:
“They [the Enewetakese] will be accorded all rights which are the normal constitutional rights of the citizens under the Constitution, but will be dealt with as wards of the United States for whom this country has special responsibilities”.
Other atolls were affected, and such obligations likewise remain unfulfilled.
The Marshall Islands has continued its negotiations with the United States on extending our relationship of free association. We have come a long way in that endeavour. We have satisfactorily addressed most issues, and we remain cautiously optimistic that our agreements will be finalized soon. However, there remain difficult issues that the Marshallese people have insisted need to be resolved. As a functioning democracy, we cannot ignore the wishes of our people and. as the world’s foremost and pre-eminent democracy, the United States needs to understand that reality. The Marshall Islands desires to continue its free association with the United States, but the United States must realize that the Marshallese people require that the nuclear issue be addressed.
The Marshall Islands strongly welcomes the rise of the Partners in the Blue Pacific initiative and the support of friends and allies that are committed to working with us on island-driven solutions. Our early steps together are positive, even as more structure is needed to listen closely to our deepest needs. Let us all go beyond the headline announcements and into our local communities and move into a more focused dialogue with the Pacific, and not just about the Pacific.
The Republic of the Marshall Islands affirms the recent statement by the Pacific Islands Forum Foreign Ministers regarding the release of treated water from the Fukushima power plant. With other Forum members, we remain vigilant, concerned and committed to regular and ongoing discussion with Japan, as well as an annual dialogue with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
I appeal to all Heads of States and Government that we work together to strengthen the foundation of international peace and security. Let us then jointly call for the Secretary-General’s Summit of the Future, to be held next year, to include diverse perspectives and voices and to forge a watershed moment for peace and security. We have before us all a valuable opportunity to strengthen the pillars of accountability and United Nations system reform. Together we can all help to ensure that the United Nations is truly fit for purpose and better aligned with contemporary challenges. The fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, to be held in Antigua and Barbuda next year, is likewise a spotlight moment for island- driven solutions and strategies.
There remains a visible crack in the United Nations. Our United Nations will never be whole and complete without the meaningful participation of the 23 million people of Taiwan in the specialized agencies of the United Nations system, as well as in meetings and mechanisms that support the Sustainable Development Goals. Difficult indeed would it be for our United Nations family to build further trust and prosperity among us while also closing the doors of our Organization to Taiwanese journalists and public visitors. For too long. United Nations bureaucracy has stuck to a wrongful misinterpretation of Security Council resolution 2758 (1971) and has used politically influenced conclusions to exclude any clear engagement with the people of Taiwan and their vibrant democracy. We must have the courage to recognize the reality of the current situation and relegate that outdated dogma to the annals of history.
Today the United Nations can no longer look the other way and ignore the need to actively facilitate peace, stability and security across the Taiwan Strait and within the region. We commend the Secretary- General’s commitment for the United Nations to do its utmost to ease tensions in the Strait and prevent escalations by involving all stakeholders. Through logic and common sense, we believe that that must include Taiwan.
Is it possible for us to wage peace instead of war? Is it too much to ask that the United Nations declare war on climate change and global boiling, poverty, racism, injustices, the inequitable distribution of wealth, the wide gulf between the haves and the have-nots and the exploitation of the planet’s finite resources? We must help to hasten the peace foretold by Isaiah when
“They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (The Holy Bible, Isaiah 2:4).