United Kingdom of Great Britain and Nothern Ireland

First, I would like to pay tribute to the work of the Secretary-General. A former British Minister once said of the NATO Secretary General that he should be more of a secretary and less of a general. Kofi Annan has been more of everything: more of a diplomat, more of a reformer and more of a moral voice of leadership in the world. In a world shattered by conflict, the founders of the United Nations saw that only by coming together, united in support of larger freedom, could we build our shared future. Today, when the world’s nations are even more interdependent than they were in 1945, what does it mean to stand, as they intended, united? At one level it means taking action when things go wrong, where there is an actual breakdown of security or a descent into violence or chaos. Today in particular, the United Nations faces the challenges posed by multiple upheavals and crises across the world. In the Middle East the United Nations is playing a vital role in establishing stability in southern Lebanon. Troops from the European Union are deploying alongside those from the Middle East, Asia and Africa. All Member States must meet their obligations under Security Council resolutions 1701 (2006), 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), if we are to enable Lebanon to be the proud, democratic and diverse nation that its people want it to be. But we are all aware that this most recent conflict in Lebanon had its roots in the continuing failure to achieve a just solution to the Palestinian question. That is why the United Kingdom has consistently argued that there can be no higher priority than reinvigorating the Middle East peace process. In Iraq, Prime Minister Al-Maliki’s national reconciliation plan can help leaders from all communities come together. At this crucial juncture, we must all intensify our support. The International Compact provides the right vehicle. It allows the Iraqi Government to set its own vision and shows us how we can help turn that vision into a reality. In Afghanistan, real progress has been made, with the United Nations taking a leading role in coordinating the international effort. But real challenges still lie ahead. NATO’s task of securing the south of the country is far from easy. Soldiers from many NATO countries, not least my own, have given their lives to provide a better future for the people of Afghanistan. The Afghan Government and people, too, want security, development and good governance. The United Kingdom and the international community are determined to help them to achieve them. We must show a similar shared determination in urging the Government of Iran to address international concerns over its nuclear ambitions and its support for terrorism. The proposals put forward by Britain, France and Germany with China, Russia and the United States offer a path for the Iranian Government to develop a more constructive relationship with the rest of the world and give Iran’s talented population the opportunities and prosperity that is their right, including, if they wish, a modern nuclear power industry. We want to be able to resume negotiations. 06-53317 20 Iran knows what is required, and that the alternative is increasing isolation. Darfur remains in crisis. I pay tribute to the efforts of the African Union and its peacekeepers. Wednesday’s decision to extend their mandate averted a security vacuum. We must now strengthen the force of the African Union Mission in the Sudan. But it can only be a temporary reprieve. We also need action immediately on the political and humanitarian front. Those who have not signed the Darfur Peace Agreement must do so. Those who have must abide by its provisions. To underpin that Agreement, we urgently need a greatly strengthened international presence on the ground, with the active engagement and support of Asian and Muslim, as well as African, countries. That is why the Security Council authorized the deployment of United Nations peacekeepers to Darfur. I urge President Bashir to extend the Sudan’s relations with the United Nations in a common purpose to bring lasting peace and genuine stability to the whole of the Sudan. It is, above all, his responsibility. The security challenges the world faces are real. As an international community we must deal with them. But standing united also requires us to take up a second, deeper level of global responsibility, namely, tackling the underlying problems that promote conflict and underdevelopment. We must strive to promote sound global values and to build multilateral systems within which nations and individuals can cooperate, co-exist and each achieve their potential. Many representatives to the Assembly have already spoken of the need to accelerate progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Progress on those Goals is a moral imperative rooted in a concern for, and an understanding of, our common humanity. But it is also a political imperative, because there will be no stability and security in our global community while so many millions of men, women and children in that community face only a life of hunger, poverty, inequality and disease. The same is true for those whose lives are shattered by conflict or blighted by injustice. The Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights Council are new structures that give us new opportunities and new impetus. At the same time, we must see a step change in efforts towards an international arms trade treaty that will end the irresponsible transfer of arms that fuel conflict and facilitate the abuse of human rights. That is why the United Kingdom, with six other countries, will introduce a draft resolution in the First Committee to establish a process to work towards a legally binding treaty on the trade in all conventional arms. Collectively, we have a responsibility to protect human life and a duty to defend the international institutions that help us as a community to achieve that goal. The answers lie not in division or in personal attacks, but in the earnest and consistent pursuit of justice and peace. Our collective responsibility to each other is nowhere more evident than in the huge challenge posed by climate change. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, made climate change one of our two G8 priorities last year, alongside poverty reduction in Africa. When the Prime Minister appointed me as his Foreign Secretary, in May, he specifically charged me with putting climate security at the heart of our foreign policy. We will not solve that problem if we do not each assume our share of the responsibility for tackling it. Nobody can protect themselves from climate change unless we protect each other by building a global basis for climate security. That goes to the heart of the United Nations mission, and the United Nations must be at the heart of the solution. To put it starkly, if we all try to freeride, we will all end up in free fall, with accelerating climate change the result of our collective failure to respond in time to that shared threat that faces us all. Look just at the danger posed by rising sea levels. Potentially, that could cause massive damage to some of the key urban centres of our global civilization. London, Shanghai, Dhaka, Singapore, Amsterdam, Cairo and, yes, Manhattan are all at risk. That is why we must all — as foreign ministers, heads of Government and heads of State — be ready to do more, and do it more quickly. Our climate presents us with an ever-growing threat to international security. Dealing with climate change, by both adapting to what is now inevitable and acting to avert still greater damage, is no longer a choice, it is an imperative. We need common commitment and genuine action. We must all be ready to find a way to get the agenda moving beyond Kyoto. The Gleneagles dialogue meeting in Mexico at the beginning of 21 06-53317 October will be one such opportunity, a chance for developed and developing countries to work together on that shared problem. If we do not act now, an unstable climate will undermine our progress in all those other areas that matter to us, not least the Millennium Development Goals themselves. Take one of the most basic needs of all, water. Already perhaps two fifths of the world’s population finds it hard to get the water they need. At the same time, many in the world rely on affordable energy to help lift themselves out of poverty — and, indeed, perhaps to give them access to that water. But there is a dilemma: if we provide affordable energy by burning fossil fuels, we accelerate climate change. That means further disrupting water supplies. For some people who now have plenty of water it will mean new shortages. For those who already have little, it will mean less. In turn, everywhere less water means less food. Let me give a specific example of that dilemma. The whole world, as well as the Chinese people, is benefiting from the great success of the Chinese economy. No one in China or elsewhere wants that growth to stop. But it is based, in China as elsewhere, on a rapidly increasing use of the fossil fuels that are creating climate change. Yet China is a country already vulnerable to climate change. The Chinese Government knows that as the Himalayan glaciers melt and agricultural land shrinks, crop yields will fall, fresh water will become more scarce and the economy itself will suffer, and with it the world’s economy. All the nations of the Arctic Circle are being, and will be, affected by melting permafrost, with disruptions to infrastructure and to investment. The Vice-President of Palau has just given us a vivid description of what the environment means for his nation. We all share, to a greater or lesser extent, that same dilemma. If we do not act on climate change, we risk undermining the very basis of the prosperity and security we are seeking to achieve. That is why we must recognize that talk of having either a successful economy or a stable climate is a false choice. We must work together to find paths for economic growth that will protect our climate. The truth is that we already have much of the technology we need to move to a low-carbon economy. But we must now deploy it very much more rapidly. What we do in the next 10 years will count the most. The former chief economist of the World Bank, Sir Nicholas Stern, will shortly publish one of the most significant and wide-reaching analyses so far of the economic impacts of climate change itself. One of the key emerging findings of his work is that while it will not cost the Earth to solve climate change, it will cost the Earth, literally as well as financially, if we do not. Moreover, if we learn to tackle climate change together, we have an opportunity to build trust between nations and to strengthen the multilateral system. But if we get it wrong, that trust will be further eroded. It is the developed, rich world that bears a large responsibility for the present level of greenhouse gas emissions, but it is the poorest in our global community — those least able to bear it — who will bear the brunt of climate insecurity. We all need to do more. But the rich world should of course continue to lead the effort, applying the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, which must continue to be our guide. In the joint endeavour which the United Nations represents there can be no more stark or more urgent warning than that.