Palau, 2014

Without trying to be

melodramatic, I believe that my country, the Pacific

region and the world have reached a crossroads. In

this International Year of Small Island Developing

States, leading up to the climate change negotiations

at the twentieth and twenty-first Conferences of the

Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention

on Climate Change, the third International Conference

on Financing for Development and the impending

adoption of the post-2015 development agenda, viewed

within the context of our rising oceans, the Ebola crisis

in Africa and the apparent societal inferno in progress

in the Arab world, we find our societies, our cultures

and our economies under serious attack, never before

experienced on so many fronts. We can continue

business as usual along our current course and wait for

the horizons to clear the global haze or we can choose a

different road, one that will give our critical habitats the

chance to recover and thereby ensure their continued

ability to sustain us. Am I a foolish dreamer or a simple

pragmatist? I guess that only time will tell.

However, I will say one thing. My country, small

as it is, will not go down without a fight, using every

available tool, nor will the Pacific region, whose people

comprehend first-hand the real and current impacts

of climate change and recognize that their oceans are

becoming polluted and their fish stocks depleted. That

is why the Pacific leaders at this year’s Pacific Islands

Forum supported the Palau Declaration under the

theme “The ocean: life and future”. Within that theme

and Declaration, the Pacific leaders highlighted the fact

that, in order to survive, we will have to continue to play

a central role in the stewardship of one of the greatest

endowments of the world — the Pacific Ocean. That is

because, in our short lifetime, we have experienced a

dangerous combination of human impacts that threaten

the foundation of our Pacific livelihoods.

That is why we have called on the global community

to support the efforts of the Forum countries to

sustainably use their ocean resources and to conserve

their valuable underwater heritage. That is why Palau,

Kiribati, the Cook Islands, New Caledonia, the United

States of America, the Federated States of Micronesia and

the Republic of the Marshall Islands are currently in the

process of declaring and establishing protected marine

areas of different sizes and requirements to reverse

the current trends of overuse and overexploitation and

thereby ensure a healthy ocean for our children.

That is why we are committed to ensuring the launch

of negotiations by September 2015 for an international

agreement under the United Nations Convention on

the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable

use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of

national jurisdiction. That is why we are calling upon

the United Nations to ensure a stand-alone sustainable

development goal (SDG) on oceans.

However, while we are strongly in favour of that

critical SDG, we are concerned that the post-2015

development dialogue may be too broad. We must

remember that an agenda of everything is effectively

an agenda of nothing. Above all, our goals and targets

must be realistic, practical, simple, transparent and

measurable. In that context, we must continue to focus

on the vulnerable countries and the people most in need.

To accomplish that objective, we must recognize that

one size does not fit all and that we must continue to

concentrate on a common but differentiated response.

Our international community has years of

experience of what does and does not work with our

Millennium Development Goals. It is now time to

complete the work on the remaining half and to continue

to improve both the level and the responsiveness of our

financing mechanisms. We must also ensure that the

bulk of the financing reaches those that need it most

and that their share is not a mere drop in the bucket.

In the Pacific, we believe action must begin

in one’s own backyard. In my country, in the next

several months, we will formalize the establishment

of a national marine sanctuary, which will include a

complete prohibition on purse seine fishing that covers

100 per cent of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ),

a “no-take” marine sanctuary that covers 80 per cent

of the Palau EEZ; a highly regulated fishing zone that

covers approximately 20 per cent of the EEZ and will

provide for Palau’s domestic fishing needs alone; and a

prohibition on commercial fish exports. Through our

global actions and our partnerships between developing

and developed nations and between the private and

the public sectors, we can achieve a transformational

shift in the way we think about the use of our Earth’s

natural assets. By recognizing the ocean as a joint and

primary asset of every citizen on our planet, we can

move towards the global management of our global

ocean exclusive economic zone.

We must never shift from the need for a global

climate change initiative that addresses the threat to

all people of all nations. Climate change is our planet’s

silent war. It must not remain on the back pages of our

minds and our global commitments. We must move it

to the front page, alongside global conflicts, so that it

receives the attention and the financing that it deserves.

And we must understand that, in terms of public health,

climate change is a defining issue for our century.

Climate change affects the air that we breathe,

the food that we eat, the water that we drink and

the infectious diseases that find their way into our

homes. Our world leaders, whether from developed or

developing countries, must overcome the failures of our

own lost generation. As the Secretary-General said, the

race is on, and now is the time for leaders to step up and

steer the world towards a safer future. A temperature

increase of 3.6 degrees is simply not acceptable. If that

is the best objective that our global leaders can agree

on, we may as well throw in the towel and stop having

children, because there will be no future for them.

By the end of 2015, our global leaders must

announce a new direction with new and realistic

commitments and practical actions, supported by

a greatly enhanced financial commitment both to

mitigation and to adaptation. Those commitments must

include the ratification of the second amendment to

the Kyoto Protocol. Within our discussions, migration

should not be an option. As the young mother Kathy

Jetnil-Kijiner from the Marshall Islands put it so

beautifully on Tuesday, “No one is moving. No one is

losing their homeland. No one is becoming a climate

change refugee”.

Our small island nations, which are the first to

feel the impacts of climate change, the first to feel the

impacts of diminished marine resources and the first to

wet our feet in sea-level rise, are ready and willing to

lead. We do not call for action from developed nations

that we are not willing to take ourselves. Last year, my

country committed, under the Majuro Declaration for

Climate Leadership, to a 20 per cent contribution of

renewable energy to the energy mix and a 30 per cent

reduction in energy consumption by 2020. We are well

on the way to achieving those goals.

Since its independence, Palau has been blessed

with strong partnerships. For over 50 years, the United

States has provided its support and friendship. Without

its support to Palau’s transition, revenue independence

and infrastructure development, we would not be where

we are today. Palau stands strongly behind the United

States in its ongoing efforts to guide the international

response to the horrific situation in Syria and Iraq

and its actions to respond to the threat of the Islamic

State in Iraq and Sham. Let us not forget that global

peace and stability are critical if we are to achieve

our development agenda and respond to the issues of

climate change and ocean regeneration.

We wish to give special thanks for President

Obama’s support for oceans and the expressed intent

to set aside 10 per cent of our global oceans as marine

protected areas. Finally, we thank the United States for

past and future technical and financial assistance in our

efforts to implement our National Marine Sanctuary.

We continue to look forward to finally completing our

Compact of Free Association agreement, which reflects

this close and special relationship.

Palau would also like to acknowledge the very

significant economic support that we have received

over the years from our good friend, Japan. We are

hopeful that the Security Council expansion and reform

process will result in Japan’s permanent membership

on the Security Council. We also are hopeful that Japan

will continue to support and enhance public and private

assistance to our exclusive economic zone surveillance

efforts and our continued efforts to develop our National

Marine Sanctuary.

In addition, Palau would like to thank the Republic

of China on Taiwan for its friendship and economic

support in assisting Palau to achieve our Millennium

Development Goals and would urge the United Nations

system to involve Taiwan in the process of developing

and implementing the post-2015 development agenda.

I would also call upon the United Nations to support

Taiwan’s broader participation in the United Nations

specialized agencies and regional economic integration

mechanisms, as its participation in the World

Health Assembly, the International Civil Aviation

Organization, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership

would demonstrate its ability to contribute to global

and regional initiatives.

We also would like to express our thanks to the

Australian Government for its ongoing partnership,

its annual aid assistance focused on education and

its commitment to providing $2 billion to the Pacific

region to replace its aging marine surveillance fleet.

Finally, we would like to recognize the very broad

list of partners around the globe that make our efforts

to ensure a sustainable future possible, including New

Zealand, the European Union, private organizations,

non-governmental organizations and civil society.

Partnerships such as those are commitments. We would

not be where we are today without them. In the post-

2015 development environment, we must all recognize

that our actions as individuals, States, nations and

regions have an impact on all our partners on planet

Earth. If we are to save our oceans and if we are to stem

the tide of greenhouse gases, we must establish a long-

lasting system of global partnerships and respect.

At the end of the day, we must recognize that some

of us are developed and some of us are not. The means

of implementation in terms of oceans, climate change,

biodiversity and all of the other issues that require global

solutions are therefore a recurring and central issue.

Without effective partnerships, change will simply not

occur, and without legally binding commitments with

respect toour oceans and climate change, we will not

make the transformative changes that we need to make

in the next generation.

As a small island developing State and a member of

the Pacific community, I am ready, willing and able to

commit to doing my share. I am even willing to lead.

But let us not fool ourselves. The only way to make a

difference in this modem global era is to go beyond our

self-centred mentality. By standing together, we can

indeed craft a sustainable future for our children and

for generations to come.