I must say that it is with emotion that I am speaking to the General Assembly today. I still recall that last year we talked to each other through a screen, without being able to interact, react or support. In my message, I expressed the hope and wish that we would be able to meet again (see A/75/PV.11). We are again meeting in a hybrid and reduced mode, but we are seeing each other more.
If today we are able to speak from this rostrum and return to more normality in our daily life, we owe it to the dedication and perseverance, as well as, it must be said, the genius of all those who spared no effort for more than a year and a half to enable us to gradually contain the coronavirus disease pandemic, whether it be the scientists, researchers, doctors, health-care workers or all those who allowed us to live and survive in such a situation and now to be able to find a vaccine. Twelve months, a year ago, who would have said that we would find a vaccine in such a short time and be able to meet other again?
Let us not forget that this city, which was hit hard by the pandemic, has nevertheless once again become the capital of international diplomacy and multilateral engagement. However, we see that many speeches are still being made by video-teleconference and in virtual format. We are therefore still not back to the normal life that we knew before, but we are very slowly getting there.
As we all know, we also see that the pandemic has had an impact, whether it be economic, social, mental or psychological. We see that it has also had an impact on our populations. Let us not forget that more than 4.5 million people died after contracting the virus and 124 million people have been pushed into extreme poverty. The pandemic has cost schoolchildren more than 1,800 billion hours of classroom time, which are opportunities and speak of hope. Allow me later on to return to hope. Education is precisely part of hope for many people.
The pandemic forces us to recognize the need and urgency to change the way in which we do business. We can no longer speak of business as usual and we must strengthen our collective action within the multilateral system, with the United Nations at its centre.
Luxembourg congratulates you, Mr. President, on your election. You can count on the support of our delegation as you carry out your important mandate. I also thank you for the time that you found this morning for that exchange with you and to be able to speak of such hope, which I will develop a little later in my address, as it is the theme that you chose under such auspices to place before the Assembly. I think that it is a very wise choice, as today we hear more news that makes despair and lose hope nowadays.
There is the pandemic. With us, every day the news begins with the 6.30 a.m. push news of how many people are in hospital, how many died and how many are ill. There are crises and conflicts, which continue to multiply. I will cite just two examples: the crisis in Afghanistan, where the Taliban’s grip on the country undermines even the progress made over the past 20 years in terms of democratic governance, development and human rights, especially for Afghan women and girls.
And what about the climate crisis? Its devastating effects strike every country; not one is spared. I have spoken to you, Mr. President, and other colleagues for whom the climate crisis is even a crisis of survival. As for us, we have crises that hit us. We have had floods, storms and tornadoes, but for other countries even their existence and physical presence will depend also on the choices that we all will make together.
Today it would therefore be irresponsible to lose hope and just be fatalistic, for there is room for hope. There are reasons for hope and that hope should inspire us to act. The time for talk is over and the time for action has come. We say that hope is lost. That is a saying, for hope can also disappoint. Despair can lead to some people no longer believing in anything. I think that hope endures and also can be realistic if there are “concrete achievements, which create de facto dependence”, to quote Robert Schuman’s Declaration on European construction.
As responsible politicians, we must act together to overcome global challenges. We should stop thinking that closing borders, as has been the reflex, for example, during the pandemic, building walls, selfishness and withdrawal into oneself are the answer. We should be aware that we do not hold all the keys, not even as Governments. We need to monitor the success of civil society. We need the private sector. We need our citizens, in particular young people, who themselves are worried about the decisions that we take today or, rightly perhaps, about the lack of decisions that we are taking today.
Our Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, calls on us to do that. I thank him for his work, and I again congratulate him and reiterate my most sincere wishes for success in his second term at the head of our Organization. In the report that he has just presented, Our Common Agenda, the Secretary-General confronts us with our responsibilities. I agree with him when he says that we are at a turning point in history.
My country is a founding m\Member of the United Nations. We have long been committed to multilateralism and an international order that is rightly based on the rule of law. Today my country is ready to respond to the Secretary-General’s call to build a more robust, effective, inclusive and networked multilateral system. That is the only way in which we can ensure peace, security and sustainable development in all its aspects, including health, respect for the rule of law and human rights.
The pandemic has forced us to make difficult choices and act with urgency without being sure that we always had the right answers to deal with the
unprecedented situation, which is true, We all learned things yesterday when we already had to take a decision the day before. We learn information today when we had to take decisions today. It was a very unusual situation, in which we were dependent but happy to see that the scientific community made progress and adapted. We also relied on information from others. Imagine, when I just talked about that selfishness, those walls and that pride, if each country remained guarded about the situation and even the information itself, rather than there being the richness of exchanges to learn the experiences of each other.
Today it is true that the decisions were not always easy to understand, particularly as one’s neighbour was doing the opposite to what one was doing. It was always very difficult. Therefore, for example, I, together with France, Belgium and Germany, had exchanges. We telephoned each other, saying that I am going to do this or that, also in order to learn from each other, as well as to share.
Nevertheless, we managed to convince an increasing number of people to be vaccinated because today the vaccine is the only way out of this crisis. Almost 75 per cent of those over the age of 12 years have been vaccinated to date. More than 6 billion doses of vaccine have been administered to date. That is an impressive number. That is good, but it is not enough. Eleven billion doses are needed to reach the threshold of 70 per cent of the world’s population vaccinated, thereby allowing for an end to talking about the acute phase, for we are not protected from mutations and variants that exist. The mutations scare me, I must say. However, access to vaccines is unequal and, while that is the case, as the Secretary-General reminded us, it will be a problem and we will not manage to escape it.
Our country is aware of the importance of vaccine solidarity. Last year and this year, as a country, we have contributed approximately €2 million to the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility for global access to COVID-19 vaccines. In July, my Government decided that Luxembourg would also share 350,000 doses of vaccine with its partner developing countries in Africa and Asia. On 13 September, a first delivery was successfully made. Luxembourg shared 56,000 doses of vaccine, and the medical equipment to administer them, with Cabo Verde through the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism.
However, what an ugly picture we all still have in our minds of when the ventilators were in such demand or when even among countries, one against another, we were bidding for ventilators on the airport tarmac and masks, competing with each other and in a race to see who could afford to pay the most to receive the supplies. What a sorry picture of international solidarity but we must remember it. For us, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, who had the opportunity to buy without denying others, it is important to also be able to share where we can. We provided respirators for India, Nepal and Tunisia. We are providing vaccine refrigerators to Laos, the Sudan, Burkina Faso and Senegal. We are ready to continue our international solidarity efforts to fight the pandemic. I had the opportunity to underline that at the summit convened by President Biden the day before yesterday.
I am confident that we will be able to overcome the pandemic if we count on solidarity and science and if we also manage to stem the tide of fake news that exists and is fuelled by social networks by those who think that information is slow to receive through their Facebook accounts and social networks. We should not say that all those who have not yet been vaccinated are part of the anti-vaccine group. There is a high proportion of our population who still have questions and doubts. We should reassure them. We should not stigmatize them. It is pointless to think that we are going to manage to vaccinate 100 per cent of people. There will always be a certain percentage that will not want to be vaccinated. Let us accept that and reassure those who still have doubts rather than shunning them. It is important to understand that we should carry them with us.
To stem that flow of fake news and misinformation, we need to react. The media and politicians also have a role to play in not letting fake news supplant impartial information. We should strengthen the World Health Organization (WHO), but we should also increase cooperation among Member States. The independent group set up by the WHO Director-General has made useful recommendations in that regard.
Allow me also to mention the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change, achieved six years ago. As I said earlier, however, climate developments show us that we should go further in our contributions, as well as in implementing our commitments. We cannot continue to make commitments, while the reality is something else. If we stay on the current trajectory, the temperature will rise by 2.7°C by the end of the century.
We must limit global warming to 1.5°C as compared to the preindustrial levels.
This morning, we had an exchange about the consequences that such global warming may have on some nations. Certain countries may no longer exist tomorrow if we see a melting of the existing ice. Realize it. I am part of a country that if I no longer exist, first I have Germany, Belgium, France and other countries around me. I am an enclave. I do not have access to the sea. But imagine if you were an island and that perhaps tomorrow, if we do not all act together, you could disappear. What a scenario. It is therefore important that we act together. I am lucky to be part of the European Union, which has made strong commitments. I also thank the countries that have stayed within or returned to the Paris Agreement. We owe that to future generations. Several years ago, I was afraid that when certain countries said that they no longer wanted to be part of the Paris Agreement, it could have a domino effect and that that would be counterproductive. Therefore, a big thank-you goes to all those that stayed or that returned.
For us, it is important to reduce net greenhouse-gas emissions by at least 55 per cent. Luxembourg has enacted a law to that end and we have doubled our production of renewable energies in recent years. We must also fulfil our commitments to developing countries and help them to strengthen their capacity to cope with the effects of climate change. My country, for example, has decided to double its international climate financing to €200 million for the period from 2021 to 2025.1 would like to point out that Luxembourg’s climate financing is in addition to our official development assistance, to which we continue to devote at least 1 per cent of our gross domestic product. I have been Prime Minister since 2013. In the past eight years, I have been asked on many occasions whether I think that 1 per cent for development aid is still necessary. And I say yes. While we all have problems in our own countries and there are many issues that need resolving at home, cutting aid to the countries that need it most would be selfish. We should defend cooperation policies in our countries without falling for the siren song of populism and making cuts when it comes to helping others.
The twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will open soon in Glasgow. I think it will be a moment of truth. I hope that we will all be there and that we will make the right decisions to guarantee a healthy environment for future generations. Speaking of future generations, UNICEF estimates that more than 1 billion children are exposed to climate shocks. The climate crisis is therefore also a children’s rights crisis. In that context, my country is particularly proud to be a member of the School Meals Coalition, as I had the opportunity to highlight the day before yesterday at the United Nations Food Systems Summit. Effective school-meal programmes are a smart investment in future generations because they help to create opportunities, especially for girls and women.
Human rights are tested every day by the climate crisis and the pandemic but also by wars and conflicts, which are theatres for crimes that shock the human conscience, from Afghanistan to the Sahel via the Middle East, Syria and Yemen, as well as Ethiopia. The promotion of human rights at the national and international levels is a priority area for us and we want to continue to assume our responsibilities in that area, too. For that reason, Luxembourg has submitted its candidacy to the Human Rights Council for the 2022- 2024 term, which would be our first as a member of the Council. If we have the honour of being elected by the General Assembly to the Council in next month’s elections, I can pledge that my country will strive to promote the rights of every human being in a spirit of dialogue and cooperation, working closely with the United Nations human rights mechanisms. We will also work to ensure that the voice of civil society is heard, as it is essential to the Council’s proper functioning. We have four priorities that are reflected in our voluntary commitments.
Our first priority concerns support for the rule of law, civic space and human rights defenders and the fight against impunity. I would like to reaffirm our support for the International Criminal Court and the monitoring and investigation mechanisms set up within the framework of the United Nations.
Our second relates to sustainable development and climate action based on human rights. We recognize the importance of the right to development and of ensuring that our ambitious climate action and cooperation policies take into account the strong links between the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the fight against climate change and respect for human rights worldwide.
The third concerns gender equality and the fight against all forms of discrimination. My country has
a feminist foreign policy, and in that regard I would like to point to the exchanges I had with you only this morning, Mr. President, regarding the importance of establishing such policies and committing to the rights and empowerment of women and girls. I think it is terrible that even now in some countries men think they know what is best for women. That is still a reality today. It is appalling that men should consider themselves better able than women themselves to decide what women need and what women should or should not do, whether in the area of education, health or sexual and reproductive rights. In 2021, the importance of such choices being made by the person concerned should no longer be called into question. We are also working for the protection of the rights of LGBTQI people.
Fourthly, we will continue to systematically invest in children’s rights. Young people’s voices must also be heard. But when we talk about human rights, we must also think about refugees and migrants. Let us consider the people who are fleeing Afghanistan. Let us not forget the journalists, the human rights defenders, the lawyers and the judges, all the people on whom we have relied over the past 20 years, whom we asked to be our partners. We cannot tell them that we no longer want anything to do with them and leave them in their current situation. Let us not forget them. Let us not disappoint them. They were our partners yesterday, and we are not going to turn our backs on them today. I am pleased to announce that in a few months’ time, the European Commission will hold a conference in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg on the resettlement of vulnerable Afghans.
We are also seeing tensions between States and within societies that are currently experiencing a crisis of confidence. I must say that the discussions I have had in the past few days with some of my colleagues have not been very reassuring. I can sense that those tensions are still there and very much alive, and it is therefore up to us to try to create a dialogue. I do not want to talk about trust when such fundamental mistrust exists, but for the benefit of present and future generations we must create some small hope for dialogue between the countries where we have contacts in order to avoid conflicts. We consider the Secretary-General’s proposal to develop a new social contract anchored in human rights and to shape a new agenda for peace very relevant. We stand ready to contribute to efforts to restore trust and international law. Of course, lasting peace is also essential.
My country is also ready to assist in adapting the United Nations so that it can better play its role as the linchpin of multilateral cooperation. Such adaptations will not be easy to achieve, but just because something is not easy does not mean we should sit back and do nothing. We must move forward. We support the calls to strengthen the General Assembly and to reform the Security Council in order to make it more representative, more effective and more accountable to all Member States. There are reasons to hope and to persevere. Above all, we must not throw up our hands. We must take action. Let us cooperate to overcome the trials that humankind faces.
Like the vast majority of my generation in my country, I have never known war or conflict. I am part of that generation. Elsewhere on our continent, however, others have not been so lucky. We owe so much to the people who have died for us. In Luxembourg, we have an American cemetery full of the graves of young American soldiers who, for the most part, did not even know where Luxembourg was. Yet they died so that I could live today in a democracy. We must never forget them. That is why now more than ever, we have to find solutions together. We must not repeat what they went through. We owe others the right to live in peace today.
When we talk about hope today, in 2021, it does not mean the same thing to everyone. In some countries, young people hope simply to survive, while others hope to have an education or the right to health. On the subject of vaccines, while in my country we are wondering whether to roll out a third vaccination programme, other countries are still waiting for their first dose to protect themselves.
Today, the fact of being white, Black, mixed race or Asian can have an impact on one’s social success. Is it normal to have to hope that I could be born a certain way and have the same opportunities as someone else? I myself am married to a man, but in some countries, I would be sentenced to death. Is it right that a bisexual, transgender, lesbian or homosexual should be forced to live a life dictated by others, forced to fit into the moulds that others impose on them? Is it normal that today, whether I am Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Protestant or Hindu, I have to ask myself if I can exercise my religion freely without being in danger when visiting my synagogue, my mosque or my church? Hope today is something that depends on where I live, where I was born, the colour of my skin, my sexuality. My only hope
is that the hopes of yesterday, the hopes of humankind, can become a reality tomorrow for future generations.