It is indeed an
honour for me to address this Assembly for the first
time. I would like to start by congratulating His
Excellency Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki on his election to
the presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-
fourth session, and I pledge him the full support of the
Icelandic delegation in the difficult and arduous work
that lies ahead of all of us.
Only a year ago this weekend, my country,
Iceland, found itself caught up in the beginning of the
global financial storm. It swept almost the entire
banking system in Iceland off the ground and left my
country facing its most severe economic setback in
living memory. Iceland was the first country to fall
victim to the greed and excess of financiers who
abused rules, followed dubious ethics, hid their money
in tax havens and introduced an irresponsible system of
stellar bonuses that incited reckless behaviour and risk-
taking beyond anything that we had ever seen before.
In Iceland, those responsible left in their wake a
scorched earth: bewildered citizens, full of sorrow and
anger, scarred by the possibility of imminent
bankruptcy and the loss of their houses and jobs. I can
tell this Assembly, however, that Iceland is pulling
through, not least because of the hard work of our
citizens, but also because we had friends that we could
lean on. Our Nordic family did not desert us. The
Baltic countries gave us their full moral support. And I
would especially like to mention Poland, which, out of
the generosity of her heart, lent us a hand without ever
being asked — which we shall never forget.
The International Monetary Fund offered us a
stabilization programme that remains broadly on track,
although I have to use this opportunity to voice
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Iceland’s grave dissatisfaction with the fact that
unrelated bilateral disputes have prevented the
programme from being fully implemented. I would
also like to mention that our application to join the
European Union has been very warmly received by our
European neighbours, for which I am very thankful. I
can therefore stand before this Assembly and say with
confidence in my voice that despite the hardships that
are behind us, the financial storms in Iceland are
beginning to break. That is due to the resilience and
hard work of the Icelandic people, but also because
you, the international community, lent us some very
important support in the hour of our greatest need.
The salient point is this. In a globalized world,
we have to tackle problems together, globally. We need
to fight together the corruption that contributed to the
international recession; we must work together to
ensure that the financial czars are not allowed to
speculate again with people’s lives; we have to work
together to obliterate the tax havens they used and we
also need to lock arms to create a sound global
regulatory framework. The world has to fight the
recession together, in the spirit of the United Nations,
but also within the framework that is created by the
United Nations.
Earlier in the week I had the privilege and honour
to take part in the high-level Summit on Climate
Change. It touched my heart when I heard the President
of Kiribati describe the plight of his country, which
might literally be obliterated from the face of the earth
without his nation being responsible for it in any way.
This is due to the drastic climate change that the whole
world is facing. The President of Kiribati asked for the
only thing that every human and every nation on earth
really deserves: he asked for justice.
I believe that the best way to give justice to the
people of Kiribati, to the people of the nations in the
South Pacific and elsewhere, and to the generations of
the future, is that we together put all our effort into
reaching a decision on a legally binding agreement in
Copenhagen that will strike at the core of this problem.
I also believe that the best way to convince the sceptics
to take that step is to highlight the success stories that
we have. We have to show the sceptics that our goals
are realistic and that we can achieve them.
I remind the Assembly that at the beginning of
the general debate we heard President Lula present the
success story of Brazil in terms of the sustainable use
of energy resources that they have achieved. Allow me
to take this opportunity to tell the success story of
Iceland in this regard. A generation ago, we were as
dependent on imported fossil fuel as any other nation
in the world. Today, a generation later, 80 per cent of
our energy needs are met by renewables. All our
heating, all our electricity is 100 per cent renewable.
What we did was to use the treasures that we had not
realized were under our feet and before our eyes, in the
form of rivers — we used hydro and geothermal power.
And I maintain that what we did, others can also do.
I want especially to focus attention on the vastly
underestimated possibilities of geothermal energy.
Many of the countries of the African Rift Valley have
similar potential to that of Iceland. In South-East Asia
we have the greatest geothermal potential in the world,
and in Latin America there is also valuable potential.
Many of these countries could, with the geothermal
expertise that countries such as Iceland have, achieve a
real transformation to clean energy; some could even
become self-sustaining in terms of energy. But, of
course, as always, what we need is finance. What we
really need is a global climatic fund to transfer
renewable technologies to developing countries to
enable them to continue growing on a sustainable,
renewable basis. The expertise we have developed in
Iceland is available, and I would like to add that,
despite our present financial difficulties, we have
ensured that the geothermal training programme of the
United Nations University in Iceland remains open and
fully funded, as it has been for the past 25 years.
Climate change is also producing drastic effects
in the Arctic. Iceland, the only State that lies entirely
within the Arctic region, has therefore designated the
Arctic as one of the main areas of her foreign policy.
Science tells us, and we can read about it in the news,
that soon a great part of the Arctic Ocean might be ice-
free at the end of summer. This is a development that
we have not experienced in our lifetimes, and it bears
both good and bad tidings. If it happens soon, it will
open a pathway for transportation between the Pacific
and the Atlantic via the Arctic Ocean, with great
benefits to trade. For better or worse, it will also
facilitate access to vitally important resources in the
Arctic.
However, here we must tread very carefully. The
Arctic also possesses the most fragile ecosystem of the
world, and it will be a real challenge to strike the right
balance between the fragile environment and the use of
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its resources. In Iceland, we believe that it is very
important to address those challenges regionally
through the Arctic Council and that any territorial
claims — which we have already seen emerge in the
news — should to be settled on the basis of the United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Climate changes are also likely to have
considerably negative effects on the fishing stocks of
the world. Representatives would know better than me
that more than a billion people, 95 per cent of whom
live in developing countries, depend on fish as their
main source of protein. As is known, Iceland’s track
record in the sustainable management of fishing stocks
is second to none. In that, as in the geothermal field,
we also have technological expertise that we are
willing and would like to share. In that respect, I am
also happy to say that despite Iceland’s current
financial woes, we have ensured that the UNU
Fisheries Training Programme in Iceland is fully
funded. It is available to Member States, and I would
be very happy for them to take us up on that offer.
During the course of this week, I have heard
many speakers criticize the United Nations, but I
would like to use the occasion of my first speech to
this Assembly to praise the work of the Organization.
In many fields, it has done well in times when the odds
have really been heavily stacked against it. I want
especially to take two examples from a great many that
I could relate.
Iceland and my Government have always strongly
endorsed the rights of women. In particular, we have
taken to heart Security Council resolution 1325 (2000)
on the rights of women, of women in the world to take
part and be active in the peace processes in war-torn
regions. I wish to remind the Assembly that next year
is the tenth anniversary of the adoption of resolution
1325 (2000) and to take this opportunity to urge the
United Nations to actively use that anniversary to
promote the role of women as peacemakers all over the
world. I would add that in that context, the unanimous
decision of the General Assembly to create a new
United Nations composite gender entity, to be headed
by a special Under-Secretary-General (resolution
63/311), was also very helpful. We thank all
representatives for those important steps, and I urge the
Secretary-General to move forward on that matter as
expeditiously as possible.
The other cause that I wish to mention as a reason
for my gratitude is the unanimous decision of the
Security Council earlier this week to call for global
efforts to stop the spread of nuclear arms and to boost
disarmament (Security Council resolution 1887
(2009)). I remember when I was a very young editor in
Reykjavik in 1986, when President Reagan and
General Secretary Gorbachev descended on the capital
of Iceland. That historic meeting really signalled the
end of the cold war. I will never forget that at that time,
for the first time in my life, a world free of the nuclear
nightmare became a workable goal, and that goal must
be vigorously pursued. Only 15 minutes ago, I heard
the Foreign Minister of India state that one of the
greatest goals of the Indian Government was to support
that development. Even though Iceland is a little bit
smaller than India, I would add its weight to that goal.
We really must pursue it as strongly as we can, and I
am grateful to the United Nations for providing the
framework for that.
There have also been other happy events for me,
as a newcomer to this Assembly, during my first days
here. I found it invigorating to hear President Barack
Obama boldly describe his vision of a peace agreement
in the Middle East based on the two-State solution and
the cessation of all settlements. I believe that his strong
declaration has created a fresh political momentum that
we who are assembled here and the Governments of
this world must not allow to fade away.
To sum up, I have talked about my nation’s
financial difficulties, but I have also said that we are
pulling through, not least because we have been able to
seek the advice and support of the international
community. Of course, Iceland is a small nation, but I
have also described how, even though we are a small
nation, we have much to offer that could contribute to
the solution of some of the problems that, together, the
world is facing today. Our expertise in the geothermal
field, for example, can be of vital importance in the
face of the climate crisis, and our experience in
sustainable fishing can be instrumental in staving off
the depletion of fishing stocks. Our geopolitical
position in the Arctic and our cohabitation with its
dangers and beauty for more than a thousand years can
be of great value in striking the right balance between a
fragile ecosystem in the Arctic and the use of its
resources.
It is true that the crisis destroyed financial assets,
but Iceland’s real assets — natural resources, human
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capital and social welfare — remain intact. That is why
I am so confident when I say that although Iceland was
the first to fall victim to the global financial crisis, it is
already on the road to recovery.