Guyana

I bring to all delegates at this sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly the warm greetings of my Government and people. The United Nations was founded out of the ashes of war and violence. Its noble ambitions, grounded in the timeless values of peace, equality and justice, seek to create a better world for this and future generations. But if those values are to mean anything, the United Nations must not be merely about a statement of aspiration. Instead, we must strive until the United Nations provides the framework where the timeless values I speak of can be given life through meaningful and practical responses to the contemporary challenges our peoples face. The challenges are many, but this week has drawn three of them into particularly sharp focus: first, our global efforts to halve poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015; secondly, a global financial crisis that threatens to undo much of the progress we have made in lifting people out of poverty; and thirdly, a climate crisis that carries the risk of planet-wide disruption that endangers entire nations and the continuation of much of what we take for granted today. Those challenges are all a function of the dominant characteristic of the modern world: our interconnectedness as a global community. And we will meet the challenges only if we adopt an interconnected response. The notion that we can protect our national and global interests through inward-looking national responses is no longer valid. Instead, it is in all of our interests for the United Nations to provide the platform that facilitates global, interconnected responses. 10-54965 16 But I think we have some way to go if that platform is to be created. When it comes to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), although progress has been made, we have not connected the rhetorical support for their achievement to actual delivery. When it comes to the financial crisis, we have not connected the benefits of globally open financial systems to measures that protect against the risks that those systems create. And when it comes to the climate crisis, we have not connected the scientific evidence to global policy responses that mitigate the worst extremes of climate change. We could choose to continue in this vein, but it is clear where that would lead us. Or we could choose to ask ourselves if we are prepared to be held accountable for carrying our share of the responsibility. My country recognizes that we must deliver our part. We are on track to meet most of the Millennium Development Goals, especially in the areas of education and health. We are doing all we can to weather the financial crisis with the minimum suffering for our people. And we recognize that we must do more than just complain about climate change. We have created our Low Carbon Development Strategy, which sets out a long-term path to protect our 16-million- hectare rainforest and move our entire economy onto a low carbon trajectory. But there are times when it feels as though the international system sets out to put hurdles on the path to overcoming the challenges. Inconsistencies and a lack of coherence among aid, trade and climate policies in the developed world, to name just three areas, often create difficulties for developing countries who seek to make progress. The United Nations can help to change those realities, and provide the framework for global responses that match the ambition of the institution. But at the core of that framework must be an enhanced understanding of the concept of accountability. As countries like mine fully embrace our need to be accountable for the actions we take to support a global response to the MDGs, financial instability and climate change, so too developed countries must recognize their responsibilities and the need to take a holistic approach to their dealings with the rest of the world. Aid flows are appreciated and valuable, but they sometimes pale into insignificance when those countries that promote how their aid is helping the achievement of, for example, the Millennium Development Goals are also pursuing unjust, narrow- minded trade or climate policies. I therefore call on the United Nations to establish a set of global accountability indicators with which we can transparently monitor whether the members of the international community are pursuing policies that, in a holistic sense, help them discharge their global responsibilities, not just through the provision of aid but also through the avoidance of unfair trade and climate policies. Through the Millennium Development Goals, we have started to develop some of the indicators we need. As we enhance them further, I believe we will see that better accountability, properly understood, can help us rise to the challenges we face. I would like to highlight the centrality of the need to protect and preserve our environment. While each of the issues I have mentioned is a global one requiring a global response, the environmental challenges we face mock those who think we still live in a world where global collective action is somehow a matter of choice. The destruction of a natural habitat anywhere in the world removes life forms that could have been the bedrock of future medical advances for citizens everywhere. A ton of carbon emitted in Africa or Asia threatens the citizens of the smallest village in North America. When those who seek to represent their citizens deny that that is true, or fail to understand its consequences, they threaten their own national interests and the wealth and security of their nation. Therefore, failure to appreciate the need for an interconnected, global response to climate change and loss of biodiversity is not just an abdication of responsibility to some intangible global good or to people on the other side of the world. It is a very real, measurable threat to citizens in every village, hamlet and city in the world. History will not judge kindly those who were too blinkered or ignorant to realize that. So a step change in our efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change and protect biodiversity is needed. When we met here last year, many hoped that the United Nations would facilitate agreement on global action to stabilize our planet’s climate at the meeting of most of the world’s leaders in Copenhagen in December. Not only did the global community fail to accomplish that, we are now in real danger of suffering from a catastrophic drift in ambition, where we no 17 10-54965 longer even try to connect the scientific evidence on climate change with the necessary global action to avert it. This drift in ambition must be stopped. It is a consequence of choices we make; it is not predetermined. So we must rededicate ourselves to crafting a shared response to shared climate threats. Most progressive countries now realize this, and are committed to temperature rises of a maximum of 2° degrees C or lower. They feel that this will require global economic growth powered by efficient and clean energy, new green industries, and a new, less carbon- intensive approach to forestry and agriculture. But despite knowing this, the international community continues to fail to put in place the measures that will enable the economic transformation that we claim we want. This is in large part due to the absence of a global agreement that puts a price on high-carbon activity and rewards low-carbon innovation. We need this to change. To that end, Guyana continues to hold that the international community needs a legally binding global climate treaty that would first facilitate the emission cuts needed to stabilize the planet’s climate, and then enable us to move on from seeing climate change purely in terms of its costs, while also allowing us to see how it can catalyse a once-in-a-lifetime global economic transformation that can benefit people everywhere. This cannot happen without deep, binding emission cuts in today’s developed world, which could stimulate the financial flows that can address mitigation and adaptation across the developing world. We recognize that such a global treaty may not be achievable this year, but we are not powerless to act now. The international community can do three things even in the absence of a treaty, and we can achieve breakthroughs in each when we meet in Cancún. First, we can hold the developed countries accountable for the commitments they have made to the immediate short-term ramping-up of financing for climate action in the developing world. The existing commitments of a total of $30 billion by 2012 and $100 billion per year by 2020 can be agreed to in Cancún. Secondly, we can solve the vexed issue of an effective financial transfer mechanism to ensure that the funds flow both to adaptation and mitigation actions. Thirdly, we should look at ramping up meaningful sectoral responses that work in the short term. Specifically, in Guyana we believe that action on deforestation and forest degradation is one of the efforts that can be made quickly and with maximum impact. I want to emphasize that none of this is about asking the developed world to provide us with aid. Instead, it is about ensuring that the capital for addressing climate change is allocated where it can have the biggest impact. In addressing these matters, I want to raise a sensitive subject: the Copenhagen Accord, which was the only tangible outcome of last year’s climate Summit. I know that many countries here today associated themselves with the Accord reluctantly, and that some did not associate themselves with it at all. But I believe that reluctant or no association with the Copenhagen Accord, and strong support for some of its provisions, are not mutually exclusive. Even countries that did not associate themselves with the Accord should hold the developed world accountable for its commitments. We have long said in Guyana that if the international community is prepared to be held accountable, we will not be found lacking. Three years ago, we said that notwithstanding the immense climate challenges in our country — in 2005 floods caused damage equivalent to 60 per cent of our gross domestic product — we were prepared to do our bit. We have determined that, as a country more than 80 per cent of whose territory is rainforest, we can make a disproportionate contribution to solving climate change. So we have looked at the contribution we can make in two ways: first, by creating a financial mechanism whereby we can put our entire rainforest under protection; and secondly, by using the resources we receive for the climate services we provide from our protected forest to reorient our economy on a low- carbon trajectory. As a consequence, after one of the most comprehensive national consultations on climate change anywhere in the world, we have started to implement our low-carbon development strategy. We have identified how we can cumulatively save forest- based emissions of 1.5 gigatons by 2020. We have a deal in place with Norway on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and because of this we are in the process of creating a climate finance fund that will amount to between $300 million and $500 million between this year and 2015. We have also identified how we can use this climate financing to 10-54965 18 invest in education and health care; to catalyse private finance to move virtually our entire economy to clean energy; to open up non-forested land for new economic activities; to invest in climate adaptation needs and to support our indigenous people in the economic and social transformation of their communities. We therefore hope that we are demonstrating the value of action on the three interlinked financing commitments I spoke of, and I hope that we are starting to show how interconnected global responses can deliver globally valuable results. The United Nations is, despite its many limitations, our best hope for the advancement of humanity. Its universality allows the Organization to play a central and catalytic role in balancing the differing interests of Member States and in generating consensus on the issues that divide us. We must therefore commit fully to the principles and purposes of its Charter and to the improvement of its structure. On behalf of my country and people, I wish to assure the Assembly of our full support for the Organization and for strengthening its capacity to better fulfil the many mandates entrusted to it.