Palau, 2008

On behalf of President Tommy

E. Remengesau, Jr., and the people of Palau, I offer my

congratulations to the President on his election. I

assure him and all Member States that the United

Nations will have my Government’s full cooperation

and support in the coming year.

Our existential challenge is climate change. To

quote the text prepared for the President’s address at

the opening of this session, we “cannot accept, under

any circumstance, proposals for mandatory emissions

reduction targets that take for granted sacrificing the

homelands of entire peoples”. We must reach an

agreement on a set of quantified emission reduction

targets for the second commitment period of the Kyoto

Protocol. These targets must reflect the urgency of the

circumstances.

The post-2012 regime must address mitigating

the impacts of climate change on small island

developing States. As the text of the President’s

opening address states, Member States “must be guided

by a single consideration: saving those small island

States that today live in danger of disappearing entirely

as nations”. Never before in all history has the

disappearance of whole nations been such a real

possibility. As we noted in Niue, Palau and the

members of the Pacific Islands Forum are deeply

concerned about the growing threat that climate change

poses not only to our sustainable development, but in

fact to our future survival. This is a security matter that

has gone unaddressed.

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It is for this reason that the Pacific Small Island

Developing States submitted a draft resolution at the

sixty-second session of the General Assembly

requesting that the Security Council honour the Charter

of the United Nations and actively continue its

consideration of the security implications of climate

change. We were gratified by the positive response

from the international community and thank our many

co-sponsors for their support. We will reintroduce our

resolution in the sixty-third session and look forward to

Assembly action this fall.

In the meantime, we cannot wait. While Palau

contributes little to greenhouse gas emissions, we are

taking significant steps to reduce our reliance on fossil

fuel, despite the detrimental economic consequences to

us. The number of projects on energy efficiency and

renewable energy has been increased, and we thank our

donor partners for their support. We appreciate the

support of Italy and Austria in supporting development

cooperation with respect to energy for sustainable

development. We also thank the European Union for

their ongoing assistance in the area of renewable

energy.

We sincerely hope that Taiwan will be able to

participate in the specialized agencies of the United

Nations. The Republic of China’s meaningful

participation in those agencies, such as the World

Health Organization and the International Civil

Aviation Organization, would help promote peace and

cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region, enhance

important dialogue and help all peoples.

The oceans that surround Palau are the backbone

of our nation’s existence and are integral to our

continued viability as an independent nation. At the

sixty-first session we banded together to protect

vulnerable marine ecosystems from deep sea bottom

trawling, a destructive fishing practice responsible for

95 per cent of the worldwide damage to seamounts. We

congratulate the South Pacific Regional Fisheries

Management Organisation for adopting interim

measures that are a substantial step towards eliminating

bottom trawling. We urge all other regional fisheries

management organizations and flag States to follow

this example, and we remind everyone that the

deadline to take action, 31 December 2008, is fast

approaching.

Palau has been active on the issue of bottom

trawling because of its effects on ocean ecosystems.

The North Pacific is home to some of the world’s best

remaining fisheries. Their diversity is a key reason for

the Micronesia Challenge, whereby the countries and

territories of Micronesia joined together to conserve 30

per cent of near-shore marine resources and 20 per cent

of land resources by the year 2020.

This project is the first of its kind in the world. It

covers 6.7 million square miles of ocean and helps to

protect 10 per cent of the world’s coral reefs, including

more than 60 threatened species. We thank the General

Assembly for its recognition of this programme at its

sixty-second session, in resolution 62/215 on oceans

and law of the sea and thank our development partners,

including Turkey, the Global Environment Fund, the

Nature Conservancy and Conservation International for

their support.

Since Palau joined the United Nations in 1994,

we have highlighted our concern that the Organization

has no presence in our country. We were pleased

therefore when the United Nations Development

Programme, the United Nations Population Fund and

the United Nations Children’s Fund announced that

eight new joint offices would open in Pacific island

countries, including Palau. We welcome that historic

accomplishment and await the opening ceremony.

Palau is an active participant in the efforts of the

international community to combat terrorism and has

made every effort to improve its anti-terrorism

capacity. We have met with the Counter-Terrorism

Committee Executive Directorate to advance our

requests for assistance, particularly in the area of

combating money-laundering and terrorism financing.

Unfortunately, the efforts of the Directorate have been

insufficient. Our experience has been that the capacity-

building efforts of the United Nations have focused on

helping countries draft and adopt legislation. That is an

excellent first step, but an insufficient one, as the best-

designed legislation is meaningless without

enforcement.

We hope that, during the sixty-third session of the

General Assembly, the United Nations will take the

next step and help smaller countries that have the drive

but not the means to operationalize the laws and

regulations they have in place to fight terrorism. We

urge the establishment of a voluntary trust fund that

would allow small States to develop effective counter-

terrorism initiatives. We thank the United States and

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Australia for the counter-terrorism assistance they have

given us.

Urgent attention should be paid to Security

Council reform. Without it, there can be no genuine

United Nations reform. Japan has demonstrated its

concern for and commitment to Palau and all its Pacific

neighbours, and should be a permanent member of the

Council. Likewise, India, the world’s largest

democracy, is a developing nation with a deep sense of

involvement in Palau and the rest of the Pacific. We

have supported and continue to support the principles

of the draft resolution proposed by the Group of Four

countries.

We have worked very hard to change the dates for

submission to the Commission on the Limits of the

Continental Shelf. The new submission regime will

allow developing countries to preserve our claims to

the resources contained in our extended continental

shelf. Though that extension of time for submission is

welcome, it is only half the battle. We still need the

resources and the technical expertise necessary to make

a full submission, and we request the assistance of the

international community in helping us to achieve that

goal.

Palau was the last country to emerge from the

United Nations trusteeship system. The United Nations

helped to return our sovereignty after four colonial

administrations. We are thus particularly proud to

advance the objectives of this unique institution and

look forward to working together to achieve them

during this session of the General Assembly. In

closing, let me thank the Assembly in my country’s

native language: Kom Kmal Mesulang.