Iceland, 2009

It is indeed an

honour for me to address this Assembly for the first

time. I would like to start by congratulating His

Excellency Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki on his election to

the presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-

fourth session, and I pledge him the full support of the

Icelandic delegation in the difficult and arduous work

that lies ahead of all of us.

Only a year ago this weekend, my country,

Iceland, found itself caught up in the beginning of the

global financial storm. It swept almost the entire

banking system in Iceland off the ground and left my

country facing its most severe economic setback in

living memory. Iceland was the first country to fall

victim to the greed and excess of financiers who

abused rules, followed dubious ethics, hid their money

in tax havens and introduced an irresponsible system of

stellar bonuses that incited reckless behaviour and risk-

taking beyond anything that we had ever seen before.

In Iceland, those responsible left in their wake a

scorched earth: bewildered citizens, full of sorrow and

anger, scarred by the possibility of imminent

bankruptcy and the loss of their houses and jobs. I can

tell this Assembly, however, that Iceland is pulling

through, not least because of the hard work of our

citizens, but also because we had friends that we could

lean on. Our Nordic family did not desert us. The

Baltic countries gave us their full moral support. And I

would especially like to mention Poland, which, out of

the generosity of her heart, lent us a hand without ever

being asked — which we shall never forget.

The International Monetary Fund offered us a

stabilization programme that remains broadly on track,

although I have to use this opportunity to voice

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Iceland’s grave dissatisfaction with the fact that

unrelated bilateral disputes have prevented the

programme from being fully implemented. I would

also like to mention that our application to join the

European Union has been very warmly received by our

European neighbours, for which I am very thankful. I

can therefore stand before this Assembly and say with

confidence in my voice that despite the hardships that

are behind us, the financial storms in Iceland are

beginning to break. That is due to the resilience and

hard work of the Icelandic people, but also because

you, the international community, lent us some very

important support in the hour of our greatest need.

The salient point is this. In a globalized world,

we have to tackle problems together, globally. We need

to fight together the corruption that contributed to the

international recession; we must work together to

ensure that the financial czars are not allowed to

speculate again with people’s lives; we have to work

together to obliterate the tax havens they used and we

also need to lock arms to create a sound global

regulatory framework. The world has to fight the

recession together, in the spirit of the United Nations,

but also within the framework that is created by the

United Nations.

Earlier in the week I had the privilege and honour

to take part in the high-level Summit on Climate

Change. It touched my heart when I heard the President

of Kiribati describe the plight of his country, which

might literally be obliterated from the face of the earth

without his nation being responsible for it in any way.

This is due to the drastic climate change that the whole

world is facing. The President of Kiribati asked for the

only thing that every human and every nation on earth

really deserves: he asked for justice.

I believe that the best way to give justice to the

people of Kiribati, to the people of the nations in the

South Pacific and elsewhere, and to the generations of

the future, is that we together put all our effort into

reaching a decision on a legally binding agreement in

Copenhagen that will strike at the core of this problem.

I also believe that the best way to convince the sceptics

to take that step is to highlight the success stories that

we have. We have to show the sceptics that our goals

are realistic and that we can achieve them.

I remind the Assembly that at the beginning of

the general debate we heard President Lula present the

success story of Brazil in terms of the sustainable use

of energy resources that they have achieved. Allow me

to take this opportunity to tell the success story of

Iceland in this regard. A generation ago, we were as

dependent on imported fossil fuel as any other nation

in the world. Today, a generation later, 80 per cent of

our energy needs are met by renewables. All our

heating, all our electricity is 100 per cent renewable.

What we did was to use the treasures that we had not

realized were under our feet and before our eyes, in the

form of rivers — we used hydro and geothermal power.

And I maintain that what we did, others can also do.

I want especially to focus attention on the vastly

underestimated possibilities of geothermal energy.

Many of the countries of the African Rift Valley have

similar potential to that of Iceland. In South-East Asia

we have the greatest geothermal potential in the world,

and in Latin America there is also valuable potential.

Many of these countries could, with the geothermal

expertise that countries such as Iceland have, achieve a

real transformation to clean energy; some could even

become self-sustaining in terms of energy. But, of

course, as always, what we need is finance. What we

really need is a global climatic fund to transfer

renewable technologies to developing countries to

enable them to continue growing on a sustainable,

renewable basis. The expertise we have developed in

Iceland is available, and I would like to add that,

despite our present financial difficulties, we have

ensured that the geothermal training programme of the

United Nations University in Iceland remains open and

fully funded, as it has been for the past 25 years.

Climate change is also producing drastic effects

in the Arctic. Iceland, the only State that lies entirely

within the Arctic region, has therefore designated the

Arctic as one of the main areas of her foreign policy.

Science tells us, and we can read about it in the news,

that soon a great part of the Arctic Ocean might be ice-

free at the end of summer. This is a development that

we have not experienced in our lifetimes, and it bears

both good and bad tidings. If it happens soon, it will

open a pathway for transportation between the Pacific

and the Atlantic via the Arctic Ocean, with great

benefits to trade. For better or worse, it will also

facilitate access to vitally important resources in the

Arctic.

However, here we must tread very carefully. The

Arctic also possesses the most fragile ecosystem of the

world, and it will be a real challenge to strike the right

balance between the fragile environment and the use of

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its resources. In Iceland, we believe that it is very

important to address those challenges regionally

through the Arctic Council and that any territorial

claims — which we have already seen emerge in the

news — should to be settled on the basis of the United

Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Climate changes are also likely to have

considerably negative effects on the fishing stocks of

the world. Representatives would know better than me

that more than a billion people, 95 per cent of whom

live in developing countries, depend on fish as their

main source of protein. As is known, Iceland’s track

record in the sustainable management of fishing stocks

is second to none. In that, as in the geothermal field,

we also have technological expertise that we are

willing and would like to share. In that respect, I am

also happy to say that despite Iceland’s current

financial woes, we have ensured that the UNU

Fisheries Training Programme in Iceland is fully

funded. It is available to Member States, and I would

be very happy for them to take us up on that offer.

During the course of this week, I have heard

many speakers criticize the United Nations, but I

would like to use the occasion of my first speech to

this Assembly to praise the work of the Organization.

In many fields, it has done well in times when the odds

have really been heavily stacked against it. I want

especially to take two examples from a great many that

I could relate.

Iceland and my Government have always strongly

endorsed the rights of women. In particular, we have

taken to heart Security Council resolution 1325 (2000)

on the rights of women, of women in the world to take

part and be active in the peace processes in war-torn

regions. I wish to remind the Assembly that next year

is the tenth anniversary of the adoption of resolution

1325 (2000) and to take this opportunity to urge the

United Nations to actively use that anniversary to

promote the role of women as peacemakers all over the

world. I would add that in that context, the unanimous

decision of the General Assembly to create a new

United Nations composite gender entity, to be headed

by a special Under-Secretary-General (resolution

63/311), was also very helpful. We thank all

representatives for those important steps, and I urge the

Secretary-General to move forward on that matter as

expeditiously as possible.

The other cause that I wish to mention as a reason

for my gratitude is the unanimous decision of the

Security Council earlier this week to call for global

efforts to stop the spread of nuclear arms and to boost

disarmament (Security Council resolution 1887

(2009)). I remember when I was a very young editor in

Reykjavik in 1986, when President Reagan and

General Secretary Gorbachev descended on the capital

of Iceland. That historic meeting really signalled the

end of the cold war. I will never forget that at that time,

for the first time in my life, a world free of the nuclear

nightmare became a workable goal, and that goal must

be vigorously pursued. Only 15 minutes ago, I heard

the Foreign Minister of India state that one of the

greatest goals of the Indian Government was to support

that development. Even though Iceland is a little bit

smaller than India, I would add its weight to that goal.

We really must pursue it as strongly as we can, and I

am grateful to the United Nations for providing the

framework for that.

There have also been other happy events for me,

as a newcomer to this Assembly, during my first days

here. I found it invigorating to hear President Barack

Obama boldly describe his vision of a peace agreement

in the Middle East based on the two-State solution and

the cessation of all settlements. I believe that his strong

declaration has created a fresh political momentum that

we who are assembled here and the Governments of

this world must not allow to fade away.

To sum up, I have talked about my nation’s

financial difficulties, but I have also said that we are

pulling through, not least because we have been able to

seek the advice and support of the international

community. Of course, Iceland is a small nation, but I

have also described how, even though we are a small

nation, we have much to offer that could contribute to

the solution of some of the problems that, together, the

world is facing today. Our expertise in the geothermal

field, for example, can be of vital importance in the

face of the climate crisis, and our experience in

sustainable fishing can be instrumental in staving off

the depletion of fishing stocks. Our geopolitical

position in the Arctic and our cohabitation with its

dangers and beauty for more than a thousand years can

be of great value in striking the right balance between a

fragile ecosystem in the Arctic and the use of its

resources.

It is true that the crisis destroyed financial assets,

but Iceland’s real assets — natural resources, human

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capital and social welfare — remain intact. That is why

I am so confident when I say that although Iceland was

the first to fall victim to the global financial crisis, it is

already on the road to recovery.