It is a great honour and
pleasure to participate in the sixty-eighth session of
the General Assembly on behalf of the people and
the Government of Tuvalu. At the outset, I would like
to congratulate the President on his new leadership
responsibilities; he has all the blessings and support
of Tuvalu. I also wish to thank and acknowledge with
profound appreciation the outgoing President and the
continued assistance and support given by Secretary-
General Ban Ki-moon, the specialized organizations
and their respective heads and staff. We are particularly
grateful for our membership in the United Nations
following a successful sixty-seventh session.
The new Government of Tuvalu, of which I am
honoured to be Deputy Prime Minister, was elected
two months ago. Just last week, the Government, in
cooperation with development partners, launched a
road map committing to mutual partnerships that will
deliver and make a difference for the people of Tuvalu.
The road map focuses on improving the delivery of vital
basic services, strengthening good governance and
enhancing local capacity to address Tuvalu’s unique
vulnerabilities and respond effectively to the impacts
of climate change.
It is visionary and timely to focus our debate on the
theme of “The post-2015 development agenda: setting
the stage” as we approach the end of a journey called
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). We are
now ready to chart a new path, which we are calling
the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the post-
2015 agenda. And as we do every fall, we have gathered
to reaffirm our spirit for and commitment to a renewed
multilateralism and genuine collective action and to
reflect, assess, address and plan for how to realize the
Charter’s principles of peace, justice, human rights,
social progress and equal opportunity for all.
However, our global efforts cannot be fully universal
until the United Nations pragmatically recognizes the
international contribution that the Republic of China on
Taiwan has made and the responsibility it has undertaken
to achieve the noble goals of the United Nations, as well
as the MDGs and SDGs, thus improving the standards
of living of millions all over the world. The Republic
of China’s significant international participation in
United Nations specialized agencies, including in
the World Health Organization, UNESCO, UNICEF,
the International Civil Aviation Organization, the
International Maritime Organization and the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,
is critical as we collectively advance towards the
post-MDG era and enter the era of the sustainable
development goals.
Tuvalu also fully supports the lifting of the embargo
against Cuba. That will allow the Republic of Cuba to
further consolidate and enhance its cooperation with
small island developing States (SIDS) like Tuvalu.
Looking back at our MDG journey, we have come
across a myriad of crises and challenges, both natural
and man-made. We know where we have come from,
we know our capacities and constraints in facing those
crises and challenges, and we know the direction we are
heading in. We give great attention to how to address
the many persistent and ongoing issues in their entirety
and in their many forms, as we approach the finish line
for the MDGs.
As we make the transition to the SDG stage and the
post-2015 agenda, we take heed of the intrinsic lessons
from the MDGs. First, the United Nations continues to
be a beacon of hope and, through strategic advocacy
and awareness campaigns, the Organization brings the
real issues and current events into the consciousness
of both the public and the membership in order to
propel action and redress. Secondly, partnership is
key to the success of this truly universal Organization.
Working together cooperatively delivers much more
that we can make happen on our own. Cooperation
and collaboration with communities, businesses, think
tanks, churches, philanthropists, regional groupings
and not least each United Nations Member, reaffirms
a true and sustainable union that should constitute the
way forward for the SDGs.
The United Nations Charter should be mirrored in
our national goals and priorities. Our vision for the new
SDGs and post-2015 agenda must reflect a membership
that is striving for the same goals — a world that
embodies peace, not conflicts and terrorism; hope,
not despair; opportunities, jobs and prospects for a
decent life, not unemployment and welfare dependence;
security and freedom, not insecurity and totalitarianism;
equality, not autocracy; unity, not divisiveness; good
governance and leadership, not tyranny; sufficiency,
not poverty; progress, not setbacks and regression; and
empowerment, not constraint.
Let me reflect on Tuvalu’s performance with
respect to the MDGs as the deadline 2015 draws near.
I am pleased to report that Tuvalu has made significant
progress towards the achievement of its MDGs, despite
the impact of the various global financial and economic
crises on its small, vulnerable economy. In the 2012
MDG progress report, Tuvalu was assessed as being
on track with respect to four of the MDGs: primary
education, child mortality, maternal health and global
partnership; as having the potential to achieve three
MDG targets: gender equality, combating HIV/AIDS,
and environmental sustainability; and as being unlikely
to achieve the MDG on poverty.
The attainment of the MDG on poverty is a
formidable challenge for the fourth-smallest country in
the world. Tuvalu is poorly endowed in terms of natural
resources and has almost no productive capacity. Tuvalu
is highly dependent on aid, leasing gratuities and rental
incomes derived from its national assets — air, sea
and its domain — and remittances. We will continue
to seek the invaluable support and cooperation of the
United Nations and the donor community in our pursuit
of attaining the MDG on poverty as we approach 2015.
Gender equality and the empowerment of women
and youth is pursued at all levels of decision-making. In
2012, Tuvalu adopted a family protection bill that aims
at safeguarding our women and girls against sexual and
gender-based violence, domestic violence and rape. The
bill has facilitated access to justice and improved the
provision of services to women and girls who have been
subject to discrimination and violence, whether in the
public or the private sphere.
Tuvalu is also fully committed to the strategic
implementation of the outcomes of the Barbados
Programme of Action and the Mauritius Strategy
for the Further Implementation of the Programme of
Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island
Developing States. As we approach the International
Year of Small Island Developing States, in 2014, and
the third International Conference on Small Island
Developing States in Apia, Samoa, we urge the United
Nations to ensure that SIDS status and SIDS-specific
recognition are truly sanctioned in the Organization’s
bureaucracy. We have seen enough General Assembly
resolutions that address SIDS issues in a vague
and abstract way, and yet the entire United Nations
development agenda includes no specific treatment of
SIDS. The 2014 SIDS Conference must be decisive on
establishing special windows for partnerships on SIDS
that are designed to ensure not only their sustainable
development but also their long-term security and
survival.
Tuvalu appreciates the decision of the Economic
and Social Council to defer consideration of Tuvalu’s
graduation from the least developed country (LDC)
category under the Istanbul Programme of Action for
the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2011-
2020. That said, however, Tuvalu humbly submits that
while the threshold criteria of LDC graduation — the
human development index, per capita gross national
income and the economic vulnerability index — are
well established, it would simply be irrational and
irresponsible if application of any two of the three
criteria was the only measure of consideration for
graduation. Given Tuvalu’s extreme vulnerability
as a SIDS, we believe that our failure to achieve a
satisfactory EVI level carries more weight for us in
considering our possible graduation from the LDC list.
Climate change and sea-level rise have had dire
consequences for Tuvalu’s situation. Our survival and
security, and our children’s future livelihood, have
been seriously compromised by the international
community’s inaction on climate change. The fifth
assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, Climate Change 2013: The Physical
Science Basis, has further confirmed to the world the
stark predictions for SIDS like Tuvalu in the wake of
climate change and sea-level rise. The challenge we
put to the Assembly is, What else are we waiting for?
What is the relevance of talking about post-MDGs
and SDGs when the world continues to fail in its duty
and obligations to urgently reduce greenhouse-gas
emissions and provide genuine adaptation? Ensuring
Tuvalu’s long-term security means saving the whole
world.
Climate change is no longer an environmental
or political issue. It is a borderless security issue for
humankind. Everyone must act to urgently reduce
greenhouse-gas emissions and provide adaptation.
Among the papers distributed to the Assembly is the
2013 Pacific Islands Forum Communiqué, which
contains the Majuro Declaration for Climate Leadership,
which Tuvalu strongly supports. Through the Majuro
Declaration, the Pacific island leaders commit their
full responsibility and leadership to making their own
contribution, however minuscule, to global efforts to
cut greenhouse-gas emissions. If we SIDS in the Pacific
can do it, surely others can, too.
The world must save Tuvalu and the SIDS in
order to save the whole planet. We urge perseverance,
with the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol as the primary
international and intergovernmental instruments for
negotiating the global response to climate change.
We call on all parties to work diligently to reach a
legally binding framework for curbing greenhouse-gas
emissions at the upcoming nineteenth session of the
United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Warsaw.
The framework should also include mechanisms
dealing with climate-change-related loss, damages
and insurance for SIDS, and should provide adequate
and accessible financing for adaptation support to
SIDS such as Tuvalu. Tuvalu also applauds and fully
supports the leadership of the Secretary-General and
his commitment to hosting a climate change summit
next year.
For Tuvalu, the climate change issue is
predominantly linked to the oceans. For a nation
surrounded by seas, an ocean SDG is pertinent, for
obvious reasons. Seventy per cent of the planet’s
surface is covered by oceans, which are the cornerstone
of Earth’s life support system. The uncontrolled and
increasing carbonization of our oceans and their
biodiversity are genuine issues of concern and must
be urgently addressed. At the same time, radioactive
spillovers of land-based nuclear wastes into the oceans,
especially those that have followed recent incidents,
must be dealt with properly and prevented from
happening again. Here, the principle that the polluter
pays should be the basis for efforts to clean, mitigate
and prevent contamination of the oceans.
Tuvalu is currently heavily dependent on
imported fuel and petroleum products for electricity
generation and transportation requirements. That will
continue in both the short and medium term. Many
recommendations for alternative energy sources and
technologies, whether solar, wind or wave, have been
proposed but not fully implemented. Our energy sector
has set itself the challenge of becoming 100 per cent
renewable by 2020. We appreciate the support of the
many donors we have had for alternative renewable
sources of energy, assistance with formulating energy
policy and promoting efficient energy sources. Science
and technological capacity in Tuvalu also remain
underdeveloped, and we need relevant and simple
technologies that can be made readily available and
priced effectively, especially for LDCs and SIDS. The
facilitative role of the United Nations as a repository
of such technologies and practices within the
Organization’s networks and websites will prove highly
beneficial.
Finally, as we approach the end of the MDGs
and embrace the SDGs, we must pay attention to
the nations with special needs, the poorest and most
vulnerable, in making every effort to meet the MDGs
and achieve a smooth transition to the SDGs. The scale
of the challenges can be addressed only by reforming
ourselves — the United Nations and each Member
country. Delivering on the future we need and on
our sustainable goals, delivering more and delivering
better, will require increasing doses of great effort
and discipline, perseverance and courage, tolerance
and harmonious coexistence, multilateralism and
interdependence on the part of us, the peoples of the
United Nations.
In a couple of days, Tuvalu will celebrate its thirty-
fifth year of independence. Can we tell our children
and grandchildren a story of continued survival on
our God-given peaceful islands? Or do we have to tell
them that the world, under the United Nations, that
noble body, can no longer save their future because of
climate change and sea-level rise? As with great pride
we celebrate the continuing vibrancy of democracy
and the rule of law, and our political independence in
Tuvalu, we also appeal to the world. Please save Tuvalu
from climate change. Let the world save Tuvalu in order
to save itself.