It is indeed my
honour and privilege, Mr. President, to bring you, on
behalf of the people and Government of Papua New
Guinea, our warmest greetings and to pledge our
support as you preside over the General Assembly at its
sixty-fourth session. We thank your predecessor, His
Excellency Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, for his
strong leadership during his tenure as President of the
Assembly at its sixty-third session.
We would like to reiterate our support for the
Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, the United
Nations agencies such as the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) and UNICEF for
their efforts to enhance the benevolent work they do
for the world and Papua New Guinea.
When God distributed the peoples of the world
everywhere, he wedged in Papua New Guinea, a small
country of 6.5 million people, between the South
Pacific and the South-East Asia. It has been a privilege
that has allowed us to appreciate the peaceful and
colourful people of the Pacific as well as the dynamic
nations of South-East Asia. We may not be a large
country or a country of economic or military power,
but in our own way and from our own standpoint, we
have a right to contribute to the world among other
nations, to collectively approach issues and problems
and to speak out whether in support or in disagreement.
Very recently, on 16 September, we celebrated the
thirty-fourth anniversary of our independence. But an
important achievement for us was the fact that by the
grace of God, we have had an unbroken constitutional
democracy for those 34 years. Our current Prime
Minister, the Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare, has
been in Parliament for 41 years. He is the founding
Prime Minister and has been ousted only through a
parliamentary constitutional vote and has returned
three times as Prime Minister, the current term being
his fourth. I am mentioning this because Papua New
Guinea is contributing to democracy in the world.
Through its democratic form of government, in a
nation of over 800 languages and cultures, a people of
diversity can find a way towards harmony and political
acceptance of one another.
We are proud of that achievement, but we are also
mindful of the many critical challenges that lie ahead
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of us as we develop and progress. Many are challenges
that cannot be handled by one individual country —
whether large or small — on its own. The United
Nations must therefore continue to provide the global
forum for all Member States, big and small, powerful
and weak, to come together to address the many global
issues and challenges we face collectively as a human
family. And together we must confront, first, the
continuing threats of climate change and global
warming, the global food crisis now compounded by
the global financial crisis, and the threats of diseases
that know no borders, such as H1N1, HIV/AIDS,
malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, et cetera. Secondly, we
must achieve together the social agenda of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Papua New Guinea firmly believes that
strengthening international peace and security is
fundamental and is a prerequisite to achieving human
development, progress and prosperity. My country
denounces weapons of mass destruction and is fully
committed to the principles of a world free from
weapons of mass terror. That is attested to by the fact
that we are a State party to the South Pacific Nuclear
Free Zone Treaty and also fully support the Treaty on
the South-East Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone.
We are now working earnestly towards early
ratification of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons and the Comprehensive Nuclear-
Test-Ban Treaty. We also look forward to contributing
constructively to United Nations peacekeeping
operations. Papua New Guinea therefore welcomes
positive initiatives of the new United States
Government and other like-minded countries to
enhance the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and
encourage disarmament.
A continuing major concern of Papua New
Guinea is the increase in global conflicts heightened by
the illicit trade and use of small arms and light
weapons, which continue to cause untold suffering to
millions of people around the world. The people of
Papua New Guinea are no exception. The global debate
on small arms has focused on curbing their use.
However, the supply side of weapons is never
comprehensively discussed. We therefore support a
proposed arms trade treaty, which is still in
negotiations and which will deal with one of the key
elements of the arms issue.
In Papua New Guinea we have seen the presence
of small arms and light weapons threaten the stability
of communities. My Government prioritized the need
to comprehensively address this issue through
commissioning the 2005 National Gun Summit Report,
which will be implemented soon.
The various global crises of today have had a
disproportionate negative impact on many developing
countries. From falling commodity prices to increases
in food and energy costs, the damages caused and the
costs incurred to redress them have heavily impacted
their development. The impact of the crisis has also
reduced levels of official development assistance
globally and resulted in big shortfalls in the national
budgets of developing countries.
While we appreciate that many countries have
had to assist their economies by massive injections of
capital, we nevertheless support the strong call for
reforms of the international financial architecture to
include major developing countries like China and
India. Such reforms would better reflect today’s global
economic realities and provide effective management
of the global process, which needs to be fair, equitable
and transparent.
At the 2005 World Summit, leaders agreed to a
set of broad reforms to the United Nations. Since then,
the Human Rights Council and the Peacebuilding
Commission have been established. Furthermore, the
concept of the responsibility to protect has received
broad support, with an inclusive process now under
way to better elaborate it.
We support the continuing call for the reform of
the Security Council in both the permanent and
non-permanent membership categories. In this regard,
we support the ongoing intergovernmental negotiations
within the General Assembly, which have seen the
emergence of strong agreement on certain issues.
We note that great strides are being made in
reforming the global gender architecture. We applaud
the strong but cautious consensus reached at the sixty-
third session of the General Assembly to support the
creation of an Under-Secretary-General post to assist in
better management of the various United Nations
entities dealing with the gender issues. We take note of
and commend the work of former Prime Minister of
New Zealand, Her Excellency Helen Clark, as the
UNDP Administrator. We therefore strongly support
the ongoing reform, as the gender issue in its entirety
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remains one of the key policy issues of my
Government.
As a growing democracy in the Pacific, it is my
Government’s desire to see our friends and neighbours
in the Pacific and beyond enjoy freedom and
prosperity. We reaffirm our continuing support for our
Pacific neighbours in their development aspirations.
We feel that on the issue of Fiji we need to continue
dialogue and not to isolate them. We also support the
main thrust of the Pacific Plan and encourage our
Forum dialogue partners to assist with its ongoing
implementation, as we believe it will catalyse the
Pacific region’s development.
The social sector of many of our developing
countries suffers greatly, and the United Nations has
quite rightly set the Millennium Development Goals.
They provide us with one of the greatest opportunities
to leverage our development process. We commend and
strongly support the Secretary-General for his proposal
to convene a high-level session on the MDGs in
September 2010.
Achieving the MDGs remains an integral
development priority of our Government. We are
working to achieve the Goals in close cooperation with
all stakeholders, including civil society and
international development partners such as the United
Nations and its agencies, the Commonwealth, the
Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and the South Pacific
Community.
The MDGs have been incorporated into our
Medium-Term Development Strategy, which focuses
on 15 national targets and 67 indicators under the
National Road Map. They are specifically designed for
Papua New Guinea to reflect the nation’s stage of
development. MDG 8 is ongoing through international
cooperation with bilateral and multilateral development
partners.
The Joint MDGs Project was launched in August
2008 and comprises the National MDGs Steering
Committee, made up of representatives of the
Government, the United Nations, academia and civil
society. The Project is mandated to build national
awareness and facilitate a strong data collection and
analysis regime in the country. The Project also serves
as a constituency for the Medium-Term Development
Strategy and the MDGs.
The Government has localized the Paris
Declaration on Aid Effectiveness by reaffirming its
principles in the Kavieng Declaration to foster
collaborative commitments with our development
partners in pursuing the achievement of the MDGs.
Our long-term aim is to grow our economy to such a
level as to allow us to exit from our dependency on aid.
We want to be economically independent; we choose
not to be aid-dependent forever. We want to give aid
and not receive it. Our aim is also to assist others from
the richness of God’s blessings on us.
The Government recognizes that greater and
sustained commitment to implement policies at all
levels is needed to achieve the MDGs. That
commitment will also be supported by ongoing public
sector reforms, especially in relation to delivery of
basic services to our rural majority.
For the MDGs to be achieved, strong and viable
partnerships must exist.
MDG 8 is critical to the achievement of the other
seven Goals. However, all our partnerships must be
underpinned by mutual respect between the partners
and the Government. Some of our key partners include
Australia, New Zealand, the European Union, Japan,
China, the United States, Italy and Austria, along with
many non-governmental organizations, such as the
Clinton Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, which continue to strongly contribute to
Papua New Guinea’s development.
Climate change has emerged as one of the
greatest crises now facing humanity. The consequences
appear dire, and they are truly global. Such a global
challenge can only be met by a concerted global
response.
In Papua New Guinea today, we see evidence of
climate change in the inundation of coastal areas, an
increase in malaria due to warming in the highlands
region of the country, and especially in the plight of the
people of the Carteret Islands, where sea level has risen
and some 1,200 people have had to be resettled.
We therefore strongly support the recent Alliance
of Small Island States declaration on climate change.
For many small island States to survive, we must strive
to roll back atmospheric carbon concentrations to less
than 350 parts per million and limit temperature rise to
less than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Therefore, emissions of
greenhouse gases must peak by 2015 and be followed
7 09-53165
by reductions of 45 per cent by 2020 and 90 per cent
before 2050. Further, we will require healthy and
expanded forest cover and widely available low carbon
technologies, including carbon capture and storage.
In this context, the importance and urgency of
extensive action on reducing emissions from
deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) can
hardly be overstated, and many delegations have
spoken on it. Deforestation continues at an alarming
pace, with around 13 million hectares of the world’s
forests being lost annually — an area the size of
Denmark, Norway and Belgium combined.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) estimates that deforestation and degradation in
developing countries may contribute to approximately
20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions caused
by humans, while also representing around 30 per cent
of the total cost-effective mitigation potential in the
period up to 2020. Any solution to the problem should
thus attract 20 per cent of any financial or institutional
response.
It is worth stressing that, without rapid and
significant reductions in emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation in developing countries, added
to deep emissions reductions by rich countries, it may
be impossible to avoid global warming levels that will
prove catastrophic for many vulnerable nations.
Without question, immediate action on REDD+ is a
crucial part of the climate change solution. Under the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change, we will therefore require strong institutional
frameworks for REDD+, including accommodating
different national circumstances and providing for
resource mobilization.
We also recognize the excellent work and
analysis under way via the Informal Working Group on
Interim Finance for REDD. This work estimates that, if
a total of €15 to €25 billion were provided to catalyse
early action from 2010 to 2015, then a 25 per cent
reduction in annual global deforestation rates may be
achieved by around 2015.
Deforestation and degradation in developing
countries are the results of the stark economic need for
local communities to survive that propels the
destruction of forests. How do we keep the trees
standing to sequester carbon?
There is hope. Significantly, early actions for
REDD+ can be achieved at a reasonable cost, while
protecting the livelihoods of indigenous peoples and
local communities, protecting biodiversity, rainfall
patterns and soil quality, and helping countries to adapt
to climate change. To succeed, a REDD+ mechanism
should accommodate countries at different levels of
development through a phased approach. The
agreement should be results-based and incentives-
driven. To achieve that, it must include both a reliable
framework for monitoring, reporting and verification,
and encourage a predictable and sustainable system for
financing.
We must succeed in Copenhagen. If we are to
succeed, rich countries must come forward and take the
lead. Without their collective leadership on emissions
reductions, finance and technology, the Governments
of developing countries will not be able to make a
compelling case at home to get people to allow trees to
be left standing. As a result, 20 per cent of carbon
emissions will continue to flow into the atmosphere.
Therefore, let me be candid. Without a transformative
grand financial bargain in Copenhagen that involves all
nations, there could be no deal.
Let me conclude by repeating that the United
Nations is the forum for agreeing on solutions for
problems and challenges. In times of global crises such
as climate change, financial meltdown and social
sector vulnerabilities, there is also opportunity. Indeed,
there is opportunity here, if we remember that MDG 8
allows us to leverage the greatest asset we have: strong
partnerships between nations, both rich and poor.
More than ever before, we need the political will
of the leading developed and developing countries, for
the sake of the children of the world and for
generations after them. I ask the General Assembly to
please consider this and make a stroke for history.