Vanuatu

I have the great honour to address the General Assembly on behalf of the Government and the people of the Republic of Vanuatu. At the outset. I would like to sincerely congratulate you. Sir. on your well-deserved election as President of the Assembly at its seventy-eighth session, and to assure you of the full support and cooperation of the Vanuatu delegation during your term. I commend your predecessor. His Excellency Mr. Csaba Korosi. on the Assembly’s many remarkable achievements under his stewardship during challenging times. I also congratulate Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on his determined and skilful leadership of the United Nations in promoting peace, security and development. I would like to express Vanuatu’s sincere condolences to the Governments and the peoples of Morocco and Libya, who have been severely affected by the recent devastating earthquake and floods. Vanuatu stands in solidarity with both countries during these difficult times. We are meeting at a time of unprecedented global crisis and uncertainty. We are failing to address the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. We are hurtling from one emergency to the next, unable to address the global shocks resulting from new technologies, pandemics, rapidly changing economies and accelerating poverty and inequality. We are putting the existence of future generations at risk. The world is at a historic crossroads. Geopolitical tensions are exacerbating the global challenges of our time. We are confronted by multi-polarization and the conflicting interests of major Powers. The lack of trust among the major Powers is weakening the foundations of multilateralism. Those challenges are global in nature and their resolution therefore requires deepened international cooperation. It is essential that we respect and adhere to the international rule of law. and that includes the Charter of the United Nations. We need a renewed commitment to multilateralism, with the United Nations at its core. We welcome the Secretary-General’s New Agenda for Peace, an initiative that we see as a transformative tool for effective multilateralism. Vanuatu also welcomes the theme of the seventy-eighth session. “Rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity: Accelerating action on the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and the sustainability for all”, which is relevant to addressing the current global challenges and accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Despite the changing international environment, the United Nations has shown that it can be strong when the will of its members is harnessed for positive collective action. We have seen the recent successful international legally binding instrument agreed on under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of the marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, a breakthrough in establishing a loss and damage fund at the twenty-seventh Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the adoption of resolution 77/276. initiated by Vanuatu through the Pacific Islands Forum for an International Court of Justice advisory opinion on climate change. All of those efforts are a notable testament to effective multilateralism. The guiding principles of these extraordinary institutions are the promotion of international peace and security, development and human rights and the eradication of poverty. The most recent in a chain of events challenging those principles is the Ukraine conflict. The danger of escalation of the war in Ukraine further justifies Vanuatu’s resolute calls for a nuclear- free world and a universal Arms Trade Treaty, which are necessary measures to prevent global human disasters. In that regard, we must find the means to quickly reach consensus on nuclear non-proliferation. We can find comfort in initiatives such as the Secretary-General’s New Agenda for Peace, a tool that offers us a unifying vision anchored in trust, universality and solidarity. It can help us to address all forms and domains of threat — from prevention, peacemaking and peacekeeping to peace-building and sustainable development. I remain firmly convinced that the challenges that have come so sharply into focus in recent years and months emphasize the call by Vanuatu and many other Member States for the reform of the Security Council and other United Nations agencies. This reform is overdue and is critical to reflect today’s global realities. We are halfway through the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. With a worrisome lack of progress, decades of development gains have been undermined and. in some cases, reversed by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), climate change and rising inflation, threatening the success of the 2030 Agenda. In its accelerated development path. Vanuatu leads a holistic and transformative approach, focusing on economic, social and environmental development, national well-being indicators, as well as building a peaceful society based on democratic institutions and human rights. Putting the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda into action is not merely a Government priority, it is an inclusive national undertaking across all State institutions, as well as civil society. In the lead-up to the 2030 deadline, the Vanuatu Government convened a six-day national summit of the people, from 25 to 30 July, where all stakeholders, including those from academia and the corporate sphere, youth leaders and civil society representatives, across Vanuatu revisited and committed their efforts to implementing The People’s Plan 2030. Vanuatu’s development road map. As we renew efforts to double down on our commitments to the 2030 Agenda, we must acknowledge that climate change is the defining existential challenge of our time and has proven to set back decades of development progress. While our countries are the smallest contributors to global climate change, we find ourselves on the front lines of the crisis. In March, tropical Cyclone Judy hit the archipelago of Vanuatu, followed by tropical Cyclone Kevin just two days later. The twin cyclones affected about 60 per cent of the total population. Assessments estimated the total effects amounted to around 43 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and the total recovery needs were estimated to be around 77 per cent of GDP. Leading into the twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, we once again emphasize the absolute imperative of limiting global warning to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Global efforts in that regard remain woefully inadequate, as reflected in the recent Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report confirms that we are dangerously close to overshooting the 1.5°C limitation goal. Drastic actions are required in this critical decade for course correction. We need to not only fulfil the commitments that we have already made but also increase ambition to close the mitigation gap in line with the available science. Not addressing it is a death sentence to small States such as Vanuatu. Given the existential threat imposed by climate change. Vanuatu, together with a core group of 18 countries, submitted to the General Assembly a draft resolution seeking an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on climate change, which was adopted by consensus on 29 March (resolution 77/276). Today States and intergovernmental organizations, such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources and the European Union, have received permission from the International Court of Justice to provide submissions to the Court. This is a unique opportunity in our history, and I encourage Member States to prepare and present their submissions and make representations at the Court. While Vanuatu acknowledges the critical role of the Paris Agreement to affect climate change. Vanuatu believes that the Agreement does not go far enough to address the current increase in fossil fuel production. As a consequence, in May. Vanuatu hosted, the fifth Pacific Regional Energy and Transport Ministers’ Meeting, which culminated in the Port Vila call to action, which is aimed at a just and equitable transition towards a fossil fuel-free Pacific. Together with Tuvalu, we are leading a call for the establishment of a global alliance to negotiate a non-proliferation treaty to facilitate ending fossil fuel expansion, an equitable phaseout of fossil fuels and a global just transition to renewable energy. Reliable data has indicated that the Pacific small island developing States have received only 0.22 per cent of the global climate funds. That is quite remarkable, given that we face the gravest threat from the impacts of climate change. There remains a significant gap in the provision of sufficient predictable financing for implementing climate change adaptation and mitigation. With the support of development partners, we are doing our part to start the construction of climate-resilient infrastructure and projects promoting sustainable resource management to assist mitigation and adaptation work. However, more support and investments are required. I wish to reiterate that climate finance must be separate and scale up and be in addition to development finance. Both are critical to meet the development challenges we face. The promised $100 billion in climate financing must also be fully delivered, providing climate vulnerable countries, such as Vanuatu, much-needed funds for adaptation and mitigation. As we approach the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals and the global stocktake of the Paris Agreement, the progress recorded so far is very worrisome We therefore cannot overemphasize the urgency of accelerating the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 as an integral part of the 2030 Agenda. We acknowledge and applaud the Secretary- General’s call to protect everyone on Earth through universal coverage of early warning systems. We are delighted to see that some Pacific Island countries are included in the Secretary-General’s projects on early warning systems. Vanuatu has undertaken the following measures, among other measures, to strengthen disaster risk management in the context of the climate change discourse: first, the new Disaster Risk Management Act. a tool that is built around preparing for and responding to disasters at the national, provincial and local levels, and secondly, a national land subdivision policy that takes a more comprehensive approach to risk reduction and climate adaptation for land development across Vanuatu. Vanuatu’s experience with cascading natural disasters has prompted the need to incorporate disaster risk reduction in development planning to ensure that its national development framework is risk-informed. We have come to realize that disaster risk reduction must be mainstreamed into the SDGs to ensure effective implementation and resilience. COVID-19 has exerted considerable fiscal pressures on our country’s economy. The tourism industry was hard hit. losing approximately 9.1 per cent of revenues. Significant GDP contractions led to large fiscal deficits, leading us to maintain temporary fiscal measures, such as tax cuts and other spending, supporting the response to the pandemic. Those temporary support measures come at the expense of building fiscal buffers to withstand fiscal shocks. We need to strengthen regional and international cooperation, global solidarity, coordination and governance at the highest levels through a multi-sectoral approach to development and prepare for and respond to pandemics and other health emergencies in the future, in particular in developing countries. Besides the inherent natural disasters that affect Vanuatu each year, the interlinked global crises are also placing immense pressure on the local economy. Bilateral and domestic resource mobilization alone cannot compensate for the impact of the global crisis. We face an enormous financing gap in solving the climate emergency while ensuring poverty reduction and sustainable development. Therefore, to close the SDG financing gap. all financial sources must contribute towards a significant, rapid and exponential scaling up of investments towards the SDGs. The reform of the international financial architecture to respond to the global challenges is therefore crucial. Access to grant-based financing for transformational adaptation development is an ongoing challenge that is exacerbated by restrictive eligibility criteria for accessing development funding. In that regard we see the proposed multidimensional vulnerability index as a welcome development and look forward to its adoption by the General Assembly later in the year. As with many developing countries, debt sustainability remains a priority issue for us. Debt relief or restructuring will create the necessary fiscal space to enable us to grow and focus on other priority needs. We also need support from donor partners in accessing technical assistance and building capacity in order to enable better debt management and greater debt transparency. In that regard, we welcome the formation of the International Monetary Fund-World Bank Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable as a framework for discussing options for debt resolution. While we acknowledge the invaluable contributions of our major partners to our development aspirations, reliable data has shown that aid to the Pacific small island developing countries has been declining in recent years. That has had several negative consequences for our States. For Vanuatu, it has made it more difficult to invest in essential infrastructure, such as roads, schools and hospitals. It has also made it more difficult to address pressing challenges such as climate change, disaster risk reduction and social protection and economic diversification. South-South cooperation, which is complementary to North-South cooperation, is critically important to Vanuatu, just as North-South cooperation and strengthening and expanding South- South cooperation in future will be crucial to Vanuatu’s efforts to achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Vanuatu graduated from least developed country (LDC) status in 2020. Our Government is working actively to implement a smooth transition strategy, with support from our development partners, in order to minimize any negative impacts of graduation. The focus of our transition extends from simply mitigating the loss of existing LDC support measures to negotiating new ways of thinking about how we move forward and of working with trade and development partners to achieve our national development aspirations. As we look ahead to the future we want, we must picture a world of freedom, one that is free from colonial rule, persecution and human rights abuses. Seventeen non-self-governing territories still remain under the purview of the Special Political and Decolonization Committee today, and accelerating the decolonization agenda is critical. It is a process that must be guided by the aspirations and needs of the territories on a case-by- case basis, and constructive dialogue is essential. The consent of the territories is valid, and we must ensure that there is space at the United Nations for their voices to be heard. I would like to emphasize that the imposition of coercive economic measures, including unilateral sanctions, on developing countries constitutes a major impediment to their economic and social development and seriously hinders dialogue and understanding among countries. Such actions not only undermine the principles enshrined in the Charter and international law but are also a severe threat to freedom of trade and investment, and in that context we continue to call for the lifting of the economic embargo on Cuba. Today we are facing unprecedented and interlocking crises. The multilateral system is under greater strain than at any time since the creation of the United Nations. We urgently need effective multilateral responses to prevent and resolve conflicts, manage economic uncertainty and rescue the Sustainable Development Goals. Amid the recent challenges confronting the Charter, it remains our compass. Let us work together for a better world.