UK

I stand here to reaffirm the Charter of the United Nations, not to tear it up. I call on every nation to support its universal principles. A year ago, we met on the brink of a global crisis and, as national leaders spoke in turn at this rostrum, the full scale of the danger was becoming clear — a threat not just to jobs, businesses and life savings but, with the imminent risk of failure of the world’s banking system, the prospect of entire countries failing as nations across Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America struggled to access credit. That crisis demanded global action. As never before, the fate of every country rested on the actions of all. And as the fear of the unthinkable took hold, we reached a clear choice: to fail separately or to succeed together. At the G-20 meetings in Washington and again in London, we made our choice. Governments came together to begin the fight back against the global recession. We acted in concert, recognizing that national interests could be protected only by serving the common interest, and that in this new global economy, the economy is indivisible and recession anywhere can threaten prosperity everywhere. We reckoned also that, if growth is to be sustained, it has to be shared. Global problems can be mastered only through global solutions. So I think that today we can draw strength from the unprecedented unity that has defined the past year. But we cannot be complacent. For while it may seem strange to say so after a time of such intense global cooperation, our world is now entering a six-month period which may prove even more testing for international cooperation together. I believe that we face five urgent challenges that demand momentous decisions — decisions that I would argue are epoch-making — on climate change, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, shared prosperity and eradicating poverty. Once again, we are at a point of no return. And just as the collapse of the banks focused our minds a year ago, so we must grasp this next set of challenges immediately. If we do not reach a climate change deal at Copenhagen, if we miss this great opportunity to agree together to protect our planet, we cannot hope for an easy second chance some time in the future. There will be no retrospective global agreement to undo the 09-52179 52 damage that we have caused. This is the moment now to limit and reverse the climate change we are inflicting on future generations — not later, not at another conference, not in a later decade, after we have already lost 10 years to inaction and delay. And if, in Afghanistan, we give way to the insurgency and Al-Qaida , other terrorist groups and Al-Qaida will return and, from that sanctuary once again plot, train for and launch attacks on the rest of the world. There can be no chance, either, of a nuclear-free world if we allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons and, in doing so, set off a new arms race. There can be no global compact for jobs and growth if we choke off recovery by failing to act together to follow through on the coordinated global fiscal expansion we agreed and have now put in place. And if we do not act together to prevent avoidable illness, there can be no plan to save tomorrow the 12,000 children who are dying in Africa today and every day. So I say we do need world agreement on urgent challenges. Now let me elaborate first on climate change. Despite the promises we have made, the road to a successful outcome in Copenhagen is not assured. Why is that? It is so because, above all, a robust and long- term deal on climate change requires money. If the poorest and most vulnerable are going to be able to adapt; if the emerging economies are going to embark on low-carbon development paths; and if the forest nations are going to slow and stop deforestation, then I know that the richer countries must contribute financially. That is why I have proposed a new approach to financing our action against climate change. It will provide substantially increased additional and predictable flows. They will be flows of capital from both public and private sectors. They would be worth around $100 billion a year by 2020. In the coming days, we must make progress. A post-2012 agreement on climate change at Copenhagen is the next great test of our global cooperation. Each of us has a duty of leadership to make sure that it happens. We must build on the discussions at Secretary-General Ban’s meeting this week. I have said that I will go to Copenhagen to conclude the deal because I believe that it is too important an agreement — for the global economy, and for the future of every nation represented here — simply to leave it to chance. So I urge my fellow leaders to commit themselves to backing up our official negotiators by going to Copenhagen too. I believe that a safer Afghanistan means a safer world. But none of us can be safe if we walk away from that country or from our common mission and resolve. NATO and its partners, from Australia to Japan to other countries, must agree new ways to implement our strategy. I believe that we must ensure that “Afghanization” takes place — that the army, people and the people of Afghanistan assume greater responsibility for the security of their own country. So, too, must we unite against terror and injustice wherever they are to be found in our world. I believe that it shames us all that the people of Somalia and the Sudan are still subject to the most terrible of violence; that Israel and Palestine have still not found a way to live side by side in security and peace; and that, for the people of Burma, their elected leader is subjected to a show trial and decades of imprisonment. There is more that we can do and more that we must do. And we must carry forward our efforts to make a coherent, strategic and more effective approach to peacekeeping and peacebuilding around the world. Once there were five nuclear-armed Powers. Now there are nine. The real and present danger is that more will soon follow. And the risk is not just State aggression, but the acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists. So we must accept that we are at a moment of danger when decades of preventing proliferation could be overturned by a damaging rise in proliferation. If we are serious about the ambition of a nuclear-free world, we will need statesmanship, not brinksmanship. Tomorrow’s Security Council resolution will be vital, in my view, as we move forward towards next year’s global nuclear security summit in April and the Review Conference in May. Our proposal is a grand global bargain between nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-weapon States. There are three elements to it, where careful and sober international leadership is essential and in which Britain will play its part: the responsibilities of non-nuclear States, the rights of 53 09-52179 non-nuclear States and, of course, the responsibilities of nuclear weapon States. First, let there be no ambiguity: Iran and North Korea must now know that the world will be even tougher on proliferation. We are ready to consider further sanctions. Britain will insist in future that the onus on non-nuclear States is that in the years ahead it is for them to prove that they are not developing nuclear weapons. Secondly, Britain will offer civil nuclear power to non-nuclear States who are ready to renounce any plans for nuclear weapons, helping non-nuclear States acquire what President Eisenhower so memorably called “atoms for peace”. With others, we will be prepared to sponsor a uranium bank outside those countries to help them access civil nuclear power. And Britain is ready to launch a new nuclear centre of excellence to help develop an economic low-carbon proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel cycle. My third point is that all nuclear-weapon States must reciprocally play their part in reducing nuclear weapons as part of an agreement by non-nuclear States to renounce them. This is exactly what the Non-Proliferation Treaty intended, and in line with maintaining our nuclear deterrent I have asked our National Security Committee to report to me on the potential future reduction of our nuclear weapon submarines from four to three. While economic cooperation has stabilized the international banking system and forged the foundation for the resumption of economic growth, recovery is neither entrenched nor irreversible. The great lesson of the past year is that only the bold and global action that we took prevented a recession becoming a depression. We have delivered a coordinated monetary and fiscal response that the International Labour Organization estimates has saved 7 million to 11 million jobs across the world. So at Pittsburgh, when the Group of 20 (G-20) meets tomorrow, we must cement a global compact for jobs and growth — a compact to bring unemployment down and bring rising prosperity across the globe. We must maximize the impact of the stimulus measures we have agreed. There must be proper planning of exit strategies together to make sure the recovery does not falter. We do not and must not turn off the life support for our economy prematurely. We must also facilitate agreement setting clear objectives on how each of us can contribute to worldwide growth in the future, and we must ensure that such future growth is balanced and sustainable. I believe we need stronger economic cooperation now as we navigate the uncertainties of recovery. I therefore propose we launch the compact by agreeing that we are committed to high levels of growth on a sustainable and balanced basis. This must be backed up by comprehensive reform of the financial sector. It must include international principles on bonuses. We must strengthen our targeting of tax havens. From next month, real sanctions must be meted out against those jurisdictions that fail to meet global standards. The voice of Africa will have to be heard and heeded to bring recovery in areas devastated by the events of the past year and to assure that for all developing countries, inside and outside Africa, we do not put the Millennium Development Goals beyond reach as a result of a wider failure of global responsibility. In London, the G-20 agreed on measures worth $50 billion for poor countries to help them weather the crisis. Because of London, the International Monetary Fund can lend $8 billion instead of $2 billion over this year and next. This is already helping Kenya and Tanzania to increase Government spending in response to the crisis. Amid all these challenges, we must remember a fundamental promise we made 10 years ago. And this is my fifth and final imperative: to achieve a vision for 2015 that we are in danger of betraying, because on present trends it will not take five years — as we pledged — and not even 50 years; it will take more than 100 years to deliver on some of our Millennium Development Goals. And 100 years is too long for the peoples of our countries to wait for the justice that has been promised. As President Obama has said, we need a global plan to make the Millennium Development Goals a reality. The unyielding, grinding, soul-destroying, so often lethal poverty I saw in Africa and other developing countries has convinced me that unless empowerment through trade justice is matched by empowerment through free education and free health care, then this generation in sub-Saharan Africa will not have the opportunity they deserve to rise out of poverty and will never be fully free. 09-52179 54 I believe the greatest of injustice demands the boldest of actions. Today at this United Nations General Assembly, we will see history being made with the beginnings of universal free health care in Africa and Asia as Burundi, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Nepal, Liberia and Ghana all make major announcements, which I applaud, that extend free health care and abolish user fees. As a result of those actions, more than 10 million additional people in Africa and Asia will now have access to free health services — 10 million people who will now for the first time get the treatment they need without being turned away or fearing how they will pay. I urge you all to match the leadership of these countries with your own support, and I commit the United Kingdom to giving that support. Let us remember how in 1945, as the United Nations was being created, countries faced a multiplicity of challenges but summoned up the energy and vision not just to rebuild from the ruin and rubble of a war, but to establish a new international order for shared security and progress. I believe that these same principles must now inspire new and better, more representative and more effective ways of cooperating globally together. And as we learn from the experience of turning common purpose into common action in this our shared global society, so we must forge a progressive multilateralism for this era, one that depends upon us finding within ourselves and together the qualities of moral courage and leadership that for our time and for our generation can make this world anew. I believe that if we take the right decisions and work together, we are in the business of creating for the first time in human history a truly global society. It is a name to be wished for and an aim to be fought for by all of us.