South Africa, 2007

Let me begin by adding my

voice to the many salutations directed to Mr. Ban

Ki-moon on being elected as the Secretary-General of

the United Nations. I wish him a fruitful tenure of

office, trusting that through his work the poor of the

world will have good reason to increase their

confidence in this Organization of the nations of the

world.

Again, I reiterate the many thanks to Her

Excellency Ms. Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, for the good

work she did as the President of the General Assembly

at its sixty-first session. Equally, my congratulations go

to Mr. Srgjan Kerim on his election as the President of

the General Assembly at its sixty-second session.

We meet here today, under the theme of

responding to climate change, at this session, which

marks the half-way point in the freely agreed period

during which the nations of the world committed

themselves to work, individually and collectively, to

achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Billions of the people of the world know as a

matter of fact that the consequences of climate

change be it droughts, floods or unpredictable and

extreme weather patterns undermine our common

efforts to achieve the MDGs. Today, we all understand

that the costs of doing nothing about climate change far

outweigh those of taking concrete measures to address

this challenge. It is clear that delaying action on this

matter of climate change will hit poor countries and

communities hardest. Yet the pace of climate change

negotiations is out of step with the urgency indicated

by science.

I would therefore urge that we collectively aim

for a significant advance in the multilateral

negotiations when our negotiators meet in Bali in

December this year. Together, we must ensure that we

build a fair, effective, flexible and inclusive climate

regime under the United Nations Framework

Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol,

and we must agree to this as a matter of urgency.

Though we have different responsibilities, and

developed countries clearly have an obligation to take

the lead, we all have a common duty to do more and

act within our respective capabilities and in accordance

with our national circumstances.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development

correctly reaffirmed sustainable development as a

central element of the global action against poverty and

the protection of the environment and identified

important linkages between poverty, the environment

and the use of natural resources. These linkages are

real to billions of the poor; the combination of their

empty stomachs, their degraded environment and their

exploited natural resources, for which they benefit

nothing, defines hopelessness and a heart-wrenching

existence.

Many of these wretched of the Earth know from

their bitter experience how their resource-rich areas

were transformed into arid, uninhabitable and desolate

areas forcing migration to better-endowed regions, thus

exacerbating conflicts and the struggle for scarce

resources.

Gathered here as representatives of the peoples of

the world, we know very well that climate change,

poverty and underdevelopment are not acts of God but

human-made.

Clearly, the starting point for a future climate

regime must be equity. A core balance between

sustainable development and climate imperatives will

have to be the basis of any agreement on a

strengthened climate regime. Any deal on fair use of

the ecological space will have to be balanced by a deal

giving all countries a fair chance in the development

space.

Under the aegis of the United Nations, but also

within our regional bodies, we have adopted many

programmes and declarations, with clear

implementation targets aimed at addressing the

challenges of climate change, poverty and

underdevelopment. As this conclave knows very well,

the many lofty agreements include, among others,

those adopted at the Rio Earth Summit, the

Copenhagen Social Summit, the Millennium Summit,

the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the

Monterrey International Conference on Financing for

Development. At all these summits and others, we have

adopted declarations using moving and solemn words

that express our profound understanding of the gravity

of the challenges facing the modern world and have

unequivocally committed ourselves to defeating any

and all of the miserable and dehumanizing conditions

facing large parts of humanity.

Indeed, this collective asserted, in paragraph 11

of the Millennium Declaration (resolution 55/2):

“We will spare no effort to free our fellow

men, women and children from the abject and

dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty. ...

We are committed to making the right to

development a reality for everyone and to freeing

the entire human race from want.”

Yet the poor, whose hopes have been raised many times

as we have made declaration after declaration against

poverty and underdevelopment and as we are doing

now on climate change can be forgiven for thinking

that this important global leadership often sounds like

an empty vessel.

That this collective is able to express, always

eloquently, the dire circumstances characterizing

poverty is without doubt. However, this Organization,

which should pride itself on visible actions and results

in the fight against climate change and poverty, finds it

difficult to demonstrate decisive progress in that

regard. The reasons for that are not hard to find.

Although the concepts of freedom, justice and equality

are universal and fully embraced by the United

Nations, this global Organization has not itself

transformed and designed necessary institutions of

governance that are consistent with the noble ideals

that drive modern democratic societies.

Because the nations of the world are defined by

the dominant and the dominated, the dominant have

always become the decision-makers in the important

global forums, including at this seat of global

governance. Accordingly, the skewed distribution of

world power political, economic, military,

technological and social replicates itself in

multilateral institutions, much to the disadvantage of

the majority of the poor people of the world.

Indeed, even as we agree on the important

programmes that should bring a better life to the

billions of poor, the rich and the powerful have

consistently sought to ensure that, whatever happens,

the existing power relations are not altered and

therefore that the status quo remains. The results of

that situation are that the United Nations can and does

correctly identify problems and appropriate solutions

necessary for making the world a better place for all of

humanity. Naturally, the dominant and the powerful

very often respond positively to agreed programmes if

these would advance their own narrow interests.

At the same time, the poor will continue to strive

for improvement of their wretched conditions. They

therefore see the United Nations as a natural

instrument for helping to accelerate the process of

change for the better. Hence, they correctly see

implementation of all United Nations programmes as

being central to the efforts relating to climate change

and the struggle against poverty and

underdevelopment.

Yet the cold reality is that it will be difficult for

the United Nations, in its present form, to fully

implement its own decisions and therefore to help the

poor to swiftly achieve the Millennium Development

Goals (MDGs). Indeed, until the ideals of freedom,

justice and equality characterize this premier world

body itself, the dominant will forever dictate to the

dominated, and the interests of the dominated which

are those of the majority of humanity will be

deferred in perpetuity. Thus, noble statements will

continue to be uttered on all matters facing the

majority of the people of the world, such as the need to

successfully conclude the Doha Development Round,

while little is done to implement the many critical

agreements necessary to pull the poor out of the morass

of poverty and underdevelopment.

We in my own country are of the firm belief that

we will achieve the MDGs. Having emerged from more

than three centuries of colonialism and apartheid, we

inherited two interlinked economies, which we

characterize as the first and second economies. The

two economies one developed and globally

connected and the other localized and informal

display many features of a global system of apartheid.

As South Africans, we have sought to strengthen the

first economy and to use it as a base for the transfer of

resources to strengthen and modernize the second

economy, and thus embark on the process of changing

the lives of those who subsist in the second economy.

Indeed, without the requisite resource transfers, it

will not be possible to achieve the MDGs, because our

second economy cannot on its own generate the

resources needed to bring a better life to millions of

poor South Africans. I mention this because, as we all

accept, central to the global attainment of the MDGs is

the critical matter of resource transfers from the rich

countries of the North to the poor countries of the

South.

Many developing countries especially those of

my own continent, Africa do not have the material

base from which to address and attain the MDGs on

their own. Accordingly, there is an urgent need for

massive resource transfers through development

assistance, investment, trade, technology transfers and

human resource development to these poor countries if

we are to achieve the MDGs and successfully adapt to

the devastating impacts of climate change.

If we do not succeed in building a climate change

regime that balances adaptation and mitigation,

underpinned by the transfer of technology and financial

resources, we will place an unmanageable burden on

future generations. In that regard, given Africa’s

specific and dire challenges, we believe it is important

to enter into a partnership with Africa using the African

Union’s programme the New Partnership for Africa’s

Development (NEPAD), which the Assembly has

adopted, so that the measures that the continent has

undertaken, with limited resources, for the regeneration

of all the African countries can be strengthened by

support from the international community, guided by

the programmes of the United Nations.

As history teaches us, it was because of the

massive resource transfers in the aftermath of the

Second World War that Western Europe recovered and

was set on its development path. A similar intervention

helped to put a number of Asian countries on their own

development trajectory. The question we should ask is,

why is there an absence of the same resolve to assist

poor nations today? The global village to which we

constantly refer should encourage us to expand human

solidarity. Thus, we would build a durable bridge over

the river dividing our common global village and

regrettably ensuring that one human being lives a

fulfilling life while another experiences a miserable

existence.

Representing the citizens of the world, we have

set for ourselves programmes requiring that all of us

work together to create better living conditions for

humanity and ensure that we achieve that which is

necessary for our mutual prosperity.

Together, rich and poor, developed and

developing, North and South, we can and must truly

hold hands and address the challenges of climate

change and sustainable development, work together to

defeat poverty and underdevelopment and ensure that

every human being is saved from the indecencies and

humiliations that are inseparable from poverty. But to

do that, we need first and foremost to implement the

decisions that we have adopted freely in this eminent

house of the representatives of the global community.

And so, let our actions speak louder than our words.