Tuvalu, 2014

It is indeed a great

honour and pleasure to participate in this General

Assembly debate at its sixty-ninth session on behalf

of the Government and people of Tuvalu. I extend my

congratulations to Mr. Kutesa on his election to the

presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth

session. We wish the Assembly success under his able

guidance. I also wish to thank the outgoing President,

Ambassador John Ashe, for a successful sixty-eighth

session. Likewise, I applaud Secretary-General Ban

Ki-moon, the Secretariat and all the specialized United

Nations agencies and staff for their tireless efforts and

energy.

Let me also note for the record Tuvalu’s sincere

congratulations to the people and the new Government

of Fiji under Prime Minister Bainimarama for the

successful holding of general elections. In the same

vein, we also congratulate New Zealand on its

successful elections.

Through the United Nations, we have worked

diligently to deliver on the noble visions and principles

enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. Our

shared goals are world peace, security and prosperity.

Tuvalu celebrates its thirty-sixth anniversary of

independence next week on 1 October, and we remain

committed and proud to be a Member of this great

body. We must applaud the achievements of the United

Nations.

But we should not be over-congratulatory. Tuvalu

also feels the sadness of the loss of lives and the suffering

of fellow human beings from crises the world over. The

losses resulting from terrorism, poverty, environmental

degradation — especially climate change — and Ebola,

along with the loss of lives owing to political conflicts

in Syria, Israel, Palestine, the Middle East, Ukraine and

many other regions of the world, are most disturbing,

even for distant countries like my own Tuvalu in the

Pacific. Tuvalu shares in the grief of those people. We

in the United Nations must work harder to address the

root causes of such crises. We support the ongoing

reform efforts in the United Nations, and in particular

we urge the reform of the Security Council through an

expansion of its permanent and non-permanent seats

and its agenda, in order to include climate change as a

Security Council issue.

As we go on, though, one question stares us right

in the eyes. Do we leaders really care? And do we mean

what we say here at the United Nations, in this great

Hall? Recently a kindergarten class in Tuvalu asked me

this question: “Do we have a tomorrow, and can you,

as Prime Minister, save us?” Reflecting on how this

body can help respond to those fundamental questions

gives me mixed feelings. We are indeed encouraged by

the momentum of some strong leadership on climate

change, as was displayed at the Climate Summit earlier

this week.

But we are also discouraged by the lack of concern

displayed most conspicuously by the deniers of climate

change, including some of our neighbours in the Pacific.

Tuvalu believes that the United Nations must not be

distracted by them. We must remain committed to

turning the momentum of the political leadership set in

motion this week into real action for a more collective,

strategic and pragmatic response to world crises. We

must walk the walk, as well as talk the talk, on every

front of our human crises if we are to ensure global

peace and security.

We have talked a lot in the United Nations about

designing sustainable development goals and a post-

2015 development agenda. The tentative goals and

targets identified are reflective of a membership that is

seeking the same high aspirations and honourable goals

as those enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations,

namely, a world of peace, security, opportunity and

prosperity. The United Nations must remain universal

and relevant in bringing the real issues and events into

focus and keeping the attention of the global community.

It should be more responsive and understanding of the

diverse circumstances and needs of its membership

and the importance of contextualizing its strategic

activities, taking into account the variable and special

circumstances of each Member. It must also improve

its presence in all countries, particularly in vulnerable

States like Tuvalu.

We must also heed the lessons of the world

financial crisis, which reversed some of our hard-

earned development advances related to the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs). Those global realities

affect even remote, small island countries like Tuvalu,

and can further exacerbate their vulnerabilities.

The new sustainable development goals, with better

accountability and transparency measures, must provide

economies, big or small, with the capacity to address

vulnerabilities and ensure sustainability. They must

also help to improve the means of implementation and

create governance mechanisms that are inclusive and in

which the voices of all countries and all stakeholders,

including local Governments and authorities, are heard

in decision-making.

The dedication of 2014 as the International Year

of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is much

appreciated. At the beginning of this month we

congregated in the beautiful and tranquil island of the

independent State of Samoa for the Third International

Conference on Small Island Developing States, which

concluded with an outcome document outlining the

Small Island Developing States Accelerated Modalities

of Action, or Samoa Pathway, and with the creation

of many constructive partnerships aimed at addressing

the special needs and circumstances of SIDS.

While Tuvalu acknowledges and greatly appreciates

the support of the United Nations membership, and

the exemplary leadership of the Samoan Government

and people, leading to the Conference’s huge success,

we also believe that the ultimate measure of success

for SIDS is the delivery of tangible action on the

ground, reflecting and accommodating their unique,

special case. It is urgent that we seriously consider

the proper integration of the SAMOA Pathway and a

special window for SIDS into the post-2015 sustainable

development agenda of the United Nations, and into

all other programmes in the United Nations and its

specialized agencies, in order to achieve their effective

implementation, with particular attention to simplified

access to climate change financing for small island

developing States.

The graduation criteria and their application to

least-developed countries (LDCs) require proper

scrutiny and review, because they are mostly not

relevant to the characteristics of SIDS. A small island

developing State may achieve a high per capita gross

national income and a high human development index,

but it will always be a small island developing State;

one cannot graduate from the natural constraints and

environmental vulnerabilities of being a small island

developing State. Recognizing the call made in the

SAMOA Pathway and given the ambiguity surrounding

the recommendations for Tuvalu’s LDC graduation,

Tuvalu seeks further deferral of that graduation until

a thorough assessment and review of the application

of LDC graduation is done, taking full account of the

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s

recent Least Developed Countries Report 2013 and

other studies dealing with Tuvalu.

With Tuvalu’s 24 square kilometres of land

juxtaposed against 900,000 square kilometres of the

Pacific Ocean, the sea has always been our people’s

lifeline to food and economic growth. As a custodian of

the Pacific Ocean, Tuvalu fully supports a sustainable

development goal on oceans, as we do the Palau

Declaration on oceans issued by the leaders of the

Pacific Islands Forum. We call on the United Nations

to honour the health of the oceans, because they are

the Earth’s life-support system. To that end, we also

support the commencement of negotiations towards an

implementing agreement under the law of the sea that

can better protect the oceans.

The seriousness and urgency of the need for action

to combat climate change have been reaffirmed, not only

by the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental

Panel on Climate Change but also by world leaders,

and was strongly echoed by youth leaders this week

in this very Hall. What more do we need to hear to

stop the denial of the need for action against climate

change? In Tuvalu, we are experiencing unprecedented,

life-threatening effects of climate change. As a low-

lying country with an elevation of barely two or three

metres above sea level, like our fellow atoll island

nations of Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Maldives,

Tokelau and all other small island developing States,

Tuvalu is finding that its security and survival, and

the future and human rights of its citizens, are being

seriously compromised. We cannot continue along that

path.

The Secretary-General’s Climate Summit, held

earlier this week, which, on behalf of Tuvalu, I was

honoured to co-chair with the President of Bolivia, gave

us yet another opportunity to hear from young people,

women and community leaders on the front line of the

impacts of climate change from every region of the

world, including my own Pacific region. Their message

from the front line is simple, loud and clear: leaders of the

world, do it! Save us!

Time is running out, and it would be grossly immoral,

extremely irresponsible and even illegal to pretend that

we did not hear the alarms and voices of those who are

suffering at the forefront of climate change. Tuvalu

highly commends the Secretary-General for his strong

leadership and welcomes the annoucements made by

those Heads of State and Government who contributed

to actions against climate change during the Summit.

We commit to building on that momentum and that of the

recent SIDS meeting up to the Lima meeting later this year

and onwards in Paris in 2015.

Tuvalu fully supports a stand-alone sustainable

development goal on climate change. We urgently need

a commitment from all countries to supporting a new

climate change protocol, to be concluded in Paris in 2015.

We must urgently address climate change in a legal and

forward-looking manner. Otherwise, our post-2015 agenda

will be meaningless and many will be left behind. We

therefore urge all parties to work urgently to negotiate a

new protocol, to curb greenhouse gas emissions and to

keep the average temperature rise well below 1.5°C. The

protocol must include loss and damage and insurance

mechanisms for SIDS against climate change and must

provide adequate and accessible financing for adaptation

support to SIDS, such as Tuvalu.

There is no time for half-measures, such as we

witnessed in Copenhagen in 2009. It is also critical that

the new Green Climate Fund and the other existing climate

change funds be adequately resourced and that access by

SIDS be simplified for expedient action on the ground.

We all must step up and commit to reducing our

emissions and to supporting those who are vulnerable. As

for my own country, despite our negligible greenhouse gas

emissions, we are committed to employing 100 per cent

renewable energy for our electrification by the year 2020.

We are already well on the way to achieving that target,

thanks to the generous support of international partners,

including the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, Italy,

Austria, the United Arab Emirates, the International

Union for Conservation of Nature and the International

Renewable Energy Agency. Tuvalu is also a party to the

Majuro Declaration.

Tuvalu has made steady progress towards the

achievement of its MDGs, with strategic complementary

assistance from the donor community. We have designed

a road map for development to move forward from the

MDGs, and to the sustainable development goals in

general. We have adopted and implemented national

policies on financial management, women and gender

development, people with disabilities, young people and

the protection of families, as well as on other sectors of

national priority, such as climate change, energy, food

security, fisheries, information technology, health care,

education and outer islands development. Much needs to

be done in order to properly deliver on those policies. We

are committed to doing that. We call for support from our

international partners through mutual partnerships with us

in Tuvalu.

The future we want is one of inclusiveness, where all

partnerships are important. The Government of Tuvalu

reiterates its position that the economic, commercial and

financial embargo against Cuba runs counter to the need to

promote dialogue and to fulfil the purposes and principles

of the Charter of the United Nations, which calls for

solidarity, cooperation and friendly relations among all

nations.

Tuvalu also fully supports Taiwan’s meaningful

participation in United Nations specialized agencies and

mechanisms, including the World Health Organization,

the International Civil Aviation Organization and the

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

Change. We recognize the cooperative spirit shown by

Taiwan in its involvement in the post-2015 development

agenda dialogue. We recognize the need to include

Taiwan in the global fight against climate change. We also

recognize Taiwan’s role as a regional peacemaker. Taiwan

supports scholarships and capacity-building for experts,

students and officials from Tuvalu and many developing

countries.

Finally, I want to say the following in clear and

unambiguous terms. We are at a turning point for the

future of small island nations such as Tuvalu. We can

create MDGs and design sustainable development goals

but, unless there is a global commitment to those goals,

particularly against climate change, we will have failed

humankind. Unless we stop greenhouse gas pollution, we

will have failed future generations. The future is ours to

create. Let us be bold. Let us take heed of the strong and

loud message from those on the front line that we have

heard here in this very Hall. Let us be seen as the ones

that created a future for all — a future that includes saving

human beings and saving the children of Tuvalu. For if we

save Tuvalu, we save the world.