Grenada, 2009

I am honoured, Sir, to add

Grenada’s voice to the many warm congratulations

offered you on your election as President of the

General Assembly at its sixty-fourth session. Grenada

looks forward to working with you and pledges to

support your leadership as you exercise impartial

stewardship over this fine institution. Equally, we

commend your predecessor, Father Miguel d’Escoto

Brockmann, for his dedication and conviction in

pursuing the vision of the United Nations as a home for

social justice for all, particularly those who carry the

greatest burden.

Through you, Mr. President, Grenada wishes to

highly commend Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and

his staff for their performance over the past year in

advancing the work of this Organization and

“delivering as one”. We thank the Secretary-General

for his interest and participation in the recently

concluded Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS)

Climate Change Summit, chaired by Grenada. We wish

him and the Secretariat every continued success.

The challenges facing the global community are

mirrored in our regional and national context.

Fortunately, we have no better place than within these

hallowed walls to continue the long and important

journey of building a better world. We cannot respond

to one challenge and choose to ignore another, because

all of them are interconnected. Indeed, working

together is our raison d’être — the essence of the

“united” in the United Nations.

Climate change is rightfully described as the most

urgent threat facing mankind, and, at least for the next

several months, it will remain at the top of the global

diplomatic and negotiating agenda. But what is the

challenge of climate change if not a risk to

development, security and peace? What is the threat of

climate change, if not a threat to the very notion of

human survival and ecological balance? For small

States, this threat is particularly pronounced.

Today, I address this Assembly on the heels of

two very important responses to climate change — the

AOSIS Climate Change Summit and the Secretary-

General’s summit on climate change. What is clear

from these very well attended global meetings is that

for developing countries such as Grenada, the alarm

has been sounded — the alarm that climate change is

bearing down on our countries and undermining our

potential for both economic recovery in the short term

and economic growth in the longer term.

It is hampering our efforts to attain sustainable

development, as set out in the Barbados Plan of Action

and the Mauritius Strategy for Further Implementation.

In the case of Grenada, this is due to our dependence

on our natural resource base, which supports

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agriculture and tourism. Together, they account for

more than 40 per cent of our gross domestic product

(GDP), and they are extremely vulnerable to the

negative impacts of storms, hurricanes and other

economically disruptive events induced by climate

change. Hurricane Ivan in 2004 brought home this

reality, causing damage estimated to be equivalent to

204 per cent of GDP at the time. The country is still

recovering from that event. Grenada is not unique

among small island States around the world in

experiencing those impacts.

The gap in terms of the experience of the reality

of climate change between those Member States

already impacted and all others needs to be urgently

bridged. If we fail to do that, the United Nations itself

will have to bear the consequences of the humanitarian

and environmental crisis resulting from the fact that

some islands will no longer be inhabitable.

When my Prime Minister, the Honourable

Tillman Thomas, addressed the Secretary-General’s

summit on 22 September, he spoke on behalf of the

most vulnerable States. For these 80 or more poor

island and landlocked States, a rise in temperature of

two degrees Celsius is unacceptable, for our safety and

survival will most certainly be at risk. That is why we

insist on a global commitment to ensuring an average

temperature increase of no more than 1.5 degrees

Celsius, accompanied by appropriate midterm targets

of a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by more

than 45 per cent of 1990 levels by 2020 and by more

than 95 per cent by 2050. These reduction levels

respond to our vulnerabilities, and surely, in a United

Nations system to which we all belong, it is

unthinkable that known threats will be allowed to turn

into grave risks.

We must solve the climate change crisis and we

must solve it now. Estimates place the cost of financing

adaptation and mitigation at about 1 per cent of the

industrialized world’s GDP — that is a contribution of

$10,000 for every million dollars of GDP. Given the

moral principle of historical responsibility, this is

affordable by any measure.

With the adoption of the AOSIS Climate Change

Declaration, small island States have said we will not

stand by and watch our islands sink, see our

livelihoods disappear and witness our children made

homeless due to the effects of human-induced climate

change. We again call on the international community

to stand in support of the most vulnerable, so as to

ensure that the targets set forth in the AOSIS Climate

Change Declaration are agreed to in Copenhagen.

Grenada will continue to play its part in highlighting

the needs of the most vulnerable while advocating for

the strengthening of their capacity for resilience. While

it continues to chair AOSIS, Grenada will always

advocate for sustainable development goals as well as

for agreements in the Copenhagen negotiations that are

commensurate to the level of the threat.

The financial and economic crises continue to

undermine economies worldwide. The green shoots of

recovery need to blossom everywhere. Grenada

continues to insist, as our Prime Minister Tillman

Thomas stated at the June summit on the crisis, that the

global financial and economic architecture needs

fundamental and far-reaching reforms (see

A/CONF.214/PV.1). Changes are needed in its rules,

regulations and governance in order to facilitate the

effective participation of small economies, which

suffer the effects of the crises harder and longer. Here,

we wish to echo the call for reform of the international

financial institutions, particularly the call for a review

of the policy conditions attached to lending by the

International Monetary Fund.

Grenada continues to pursue sustainable

economic development and prosperity for our people,

as they show resilience to economic setbacks. A study

by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United

Nations shows that Latin America and the Caribbean

was the most successful region before the surge in food

prices in 2008. That affirms our efforts.

However, another study showed that in times of

crisis, social spending does not favour the poor and

development goals are stymied. This is our fear, and it

is also our reality. That is why the Government

introduced a package of measures, greatly supported by

financing from the Trinidad and Tobago Petroleum

Fund, which has begun to lay the basis for developing

a low-carbon and rights-based economic development

model. In this regard, we wish to thank the

Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago

for its continued assistance to Grenada and to the

Caribbean region through its contribution to this Fund.

We are also grateful for the Petrocaribe agreement with

the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of

Venezuela, through which several Caribbean countries

are able to purchase oil on softer terms.

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Grenada has put in place strategic initiatives that

include revitalizing the agricultural sector, increasing

labour productivity, diversifying the export-services

sector, strengthening the national investment

environment and modernizing our tax system. In

implementing those initiatives, we seek partnerships

with the international community and the United

Nations system.

Trade continues to be of major importance to

Grenada. We are experiencing severe setbacks from the

loss of preferential treatment in agricultural markets.

We are among the smallest and most open markets in

the world. And yet larger countries contest whatever

benefits we receive to offset the disadvantages of our

small economic size, which are compounded by high

transportation cost and energy prices.

Grenada is pleased that the United Nations

system continues to pursue economic growth and

development. We support the perspective that any

outcome in Copenhagen must be a development

outcome, for each is connected to the other. We urge

support for meeting the Millennium Development

Goals. We have made progress by achieving 80 per

cent primary school enrolment, by reducing violence

against women and by scaling up access to

antiretroviral drugs for persons living with HIV/AIDS.

All the same, Grenada is striving to achieve a

faster rate of poverty eradication. That goal, however,

is hampered by the drop in revenue caused by the

economic downturn and by our heavy debt burden,

which now stands at 107 per cent of GDP. That is why

we add our voice to the call for a review of the criteria

for determining middle-income status. For while we

welcome efforts to assist highly indebted poor

countries, States such as Grenada that are currently

referred to as highly indebted middle-income countries

deserve special attention.

The Government of Grenada favours peace and

reconciliation, aspiring to bring people together to

work for a common good. From that platform we

pursue true partnership for development, beginning

with the private sector, trade unions and civil society.

Together, then, as one nation, we face the international

community.

Development is important in its own right. It also

serves as a guarantor for peace and security. We urge

the United Nations to continue its efforts in

peacebuilding and peacekeeping. My country continues

to support those efforts in the Caribbean region, to

which we have contributed a small number of officers.

We welcome the reopening of the office of the

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Barbados

to serve the eastern Caribbean region, and we highlight

the need for more intervention to stop drug trafficking.

In our region, the proliferation of small arms is as

lethal as nuclear weapons. So while we welcome the

unanimously adopted Security Council resolution

1887 (2009) on nuclear disarmament, shepherded by

President Obama, we in the Caribbean call for an

agreement on the small arms trade.

Grenada again calls the Assembly’s attention to

the need to ensure the protection of the Caribbean Sea.

The States of the Caribbean Community and members

of the Association of Caribbean States depend on the

tremendous benefits from the pristine waters of the

Caribbean Sea. Yet those ocean-based resources are

threatened by the trans-shipment of nuclear and other

hazardous waste materials through our waters. We look

to the General Assembly to strengthen the resolution

on this issue and to ensure that the threat is removed as

soon as possible.

In what United States President Barack Obama

calls the new era of engagement, we believe that we

face three major undertakings. The first is to respond to

whatever threatens us at a level commensurate to the

threat; second, to strengthen the institutional capacity

of the United Nations to enable it to respond; and third,

the sacredness of this grand institution to inspire

humanity.

In this endeavour, Grenada is guided by its

national values, the principles of the Charter of the

United Nations and its participation in the hemispheric

system and the Caribbean regional integration process.

Consequently, we reject the removal of the duly elected

head of State in Honduras and call for the immediate

restoration of President José Manuel Zelaya to the

position to which he was legitimately elected.

The maintenance of the 40-year United States

embargo against Cuba and the failure to bring into

being a homeland and State for the Palestinian people,

despite numerous United Nations resolutions on both

issues, remain of deep concern, for they violate the

spirit and letter of international law, on which this

Organization is founded. We join the entire Caribbean

community in calling for an end to the United States

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embargo against Cuba and urge the normalization of

relations between the two countries. We call for a

sincere engagement to resolve the long-standing

Palestinian-Israeli and wider Middle East conflict.

Resolution of those entrenched conflicts will generate

the momentum needed for resolving similar conflicts in

other regions in Africa and elsewhere.

The United Nations plays a critical role in every

facet of global affairs. That is its strength. To become

more effective, the Organization must necessarily

become stronger, and that is why the resolution on

system-wide coherence is timely and has our support.

Likewise, the reform of the Security Council must not

be put off for another 16 years. Reform must mean

greater democratization by removing the veto,

enlarging permanent and non-permanent categories and

making operating rules and procedures transparent.

Grenada is proud to continue playing its role at

the United Nations. We support the pursuit of

international peace and security, the rule of law and the

fight against terrorism and for the eradication of

poverty and the promotion of human rights. We support

the agenda of the Non-Aligned Movement, and the

Group of 77 and China. We support the just ambitions

of Africa, and we proudly support the initiative of the

Government of South Africa to mark and celebrate,

across the globe, 18 July as Nelson Mandela Day, a day

of selfless giving.

We welcome the United Nations support for the

initiative to establish the permanent memorial to

honour the victims of slavery and the transatlantic

slave trade: lest we forget. That memorial is addressed

to all humanity so that we may draw the lessons of

yesteryear for our empowerment. We thank all Member

States which have already contributed, and we

encourage others to support the Permanent Memorial

Fund.

Grenada continues to value the role of the United

Nations as the pre-eminent institution for effecting

multilateral diplomacy. We support its ability to ensure

international peace and stability and to accord a voice

to all sovereign States, as enshrined in its Charter. We

have made significant and meaningful progress in

previous sessions of the General Assembly. Let this

sixty-fourth session be another outstanding forward

movement in meeting the most pressing global

challenges of our time.