79th Session of the UN General Assembly Statement by Hon. Charlot Salwai Tabimasmas, Prime Minister of the Republic of Vanuatu 27 September 2024 Mr. President; Excellencies, Heads of State and Governments; Mr. Secretary-General; Distinguished Delegates; Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the great honor to address this eminent assembly on behalf of the Government and people of the Republic of Vanuatu. Mr President, I join previous speakers in extending my sincere congratulations to you, on your election as the President of the 79th Session of the General Assembly. You can count on my delegation’s full support and cooperation as you steer the work of this august body. I commend your predecessor, H.E. Mr. Dennis Francis for the many remarkable achievements of the General Assembly under his stellar leadership during very challenging times. May I also congratulate the Secretary-General, Mr. Antonio Guterres for his determined and skilful leadership of the United Nations to promote peace, security and development. Vanuatu welcomes the theme of this seventy-ninth session “Leaving no one behind: acting together for the advancement of peace, sustainable development and human dignity for present and future generations” as it addresses the current global challenges of our time. Mr President, 79 years after the establishment of the United Nations, our collective efforts to create a better world for our present and future generations is nothing short of disappointing. It is alarming that after all these years, we continue to be plagued by multiple world crises undermining the promise of the Charter of the United Nations and failing our peoples, the vulnerable in particular. Vanuatu welcomes the latest UN Secretary General’s report, which highlights the fact we are significantly falling short of achieving our SDG goals, prompting the need to fast track actions to scale up the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. Our collective failures to confront climate change, boost international development finance and to secure global peace continue to plague development for Small Island Developing States like Vanuatu. Mr. President, While industrialized nations continue to advance their economies, Small Island Developing States continue to bear the brunt of climate change affecting our development efforts and aspirations. If the current carbon emissions trajectory continues in its dangerous path, Vanuatu stands zero chance to measure up to its recently gained status as a developing state. The increasing intensity and frequency of climate induced disasters continue to threaten our livelihoods and shed multiple years of development gains, leaving the furthest behind even further behind. The window for real action to restore the health of this planet is fast closing on all of us. The latest IPCC report paints a dire future for our planet and our livelihoods. Despite this scathing report, the global response to the threat of climate change remains sub-par, undermining sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty. The report warns us that we are likely to pass a dangerous temperature threshold within the next 10 years. We foresaw this, which is why Vanuatu sought an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice requesting clarification on States’ legal obligations with respect to climate change, which has garnered unprecedented global attention. The 95 States and Organisations written submissions received by the Court these proceedings, which was born from our consensus resolution last year, demonstrate the critical importance of legal clarity on States’ climate obligations and responsibility. Let me reiterate – the initiative to bring climate change before the ICJ is not about naming or shaming any particular nation –it seeks to highlight the existing rules of international law and their consequences for all nations, providing the foundation for real climate action and climate justice through shared understanding of responsibility and accountability. I call upon all UN Member States, especially other climate vulnerable nations, to be part of these historic hearings, which begin on the 2nd of December 2024. Your voices are crucial in ensuring the Court fully grasp the implications of climate change for those most affected and will unite us in our shared commitment to justice and human rights as part of a more sustainable future. Mr. President, Vanuatu’s economy fared well when we maintained our status as a Least Developing Country. When we graduated, our structural challenges and vulnerabilities remained while increasing costs continue to soar. We reiterate the need for our development partners to support us in phasing out our LDC- specific support in a gradual and predictable manner. Small island economies also continue to face multiple crises amid tightening financial conditions and rising borrowing costs. This has increased our debt distress risks and undermined our abilities to invest in recoveries. Vanuatu welcomes the outcome of the Summit of the Future calling for global concerted efforts to reform the global economic and financial architecture to make it fit for the challenges of this century. We call for sweeping reforms of Bretton Woods Institutions to restructure the international monetary and financial system to better reflect the evolving global realities and challenges, including the establishment of an international sovereign debt workout mechanism to solve current debt crises in developing countries, particularly those most vulnerable. Vanuatu and other small island economies are struggling with the onslaught of climate induced disasters, and while we continue to try to build resilience and adapt to climate change, we are moving backwards too often. Vanuatu loses over half of its GDP each time a severe cyclone strikes. We have had 5 severe cyclones in past 3 years. The latest Adaptation Fund report estimates a current adaptation finance gap of between 194- 366 billion dollars a year. As a country in the frontline of frequent and intensifying climate disasters, Vanuatu calls for a new finance goal that will accelerate the transition away from fossils, build resilience and realistically address Loss and Damage. In light of these initiatives to mitigate and adapt to climate change, Vanuatu also believes it is of crucial importance to prevent the severest harms to our planet’s vital and climate-regulating ecosystems before they occur. It is for this reason we have taken the formal step of proposing an independent crime of ecocide to the International Criminal Court. We thank delegations for their existing support, in particular Fiji and Samoa for their co-sponsorship of the proposal, and we recognise that there is broad and growing support for this initiative around the world. Mr. President, Vanuatu and many Pacific Island States have faced multiple correspondent banking withdrawals restricting financial inflows, including delay in the transfer of international development funds and humanitarian and disaster relief funds as well as discouraging private sector investment. This is despite genuine efforts to improve and enforce national money laundering and finance for terrorism regulations. Safeguarding uninterrupted access to international financial services is essential for fast cross-border payments including remittances and export revenues. We welcome World Bank efforts to help Pacific Island Countries address this issue among others earlier this month. Mr President, In 2019, Vanuatu presented its first Voluntary National Review (VNR), highlighting a very positive message of progress despite extreme vulnerability to climate-related disasters. The presentation of the second Voluntary National Review, this year, at the High-Level Political Forum, highlighted significant challenges in our pursuit to achieving sustainable development. We continue to endure increasingly frequent and severe tropical cyclones, which were compounded with the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, and there is no clear trajectory or end in sight. Ever looming is the prospect of future disasters. The Government and people of Vanuatu have had to continuously adapt and strengthen resilience mechanisms to mitigate the impacts of these persistent threats and disruptions. Mr. President, Fulfilling the SDGs is not merely an aspiration but a necessity for us. The 2023 SDG Summit saw the adoption of a strong political declaration and launched a new phase of accelerated action to realise the SDGs by 2030. In July this year, the convening of the High-Level Political Forum, yet again, serves as a platform for follow up and review of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, with an aim to galvanize real transformational change to achieve the sustainable development goals. More so, the recent convening of the Summit of the Future aims to rally collective support to deliver faster and smarter on the 2030 Agenda, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. It is my hope that the reforms highlighted in the Pact for the Future will rebuild trust again in the multilateral system. The Pact for the Future requires strong political will to drive transformative actions that will usher a brighter future for all. Mr President, Financing is the fuel for development. Yet at the very heart of our lack of making real progress in achieving the SDGs lies a lack of financing. We remain at the frontlines of a climate emergency that not only threatens our overall sustainable development, but time and time again, given the lack of affordable alternatives, we are forced to incur unsustainable levels of debt to finance recovery from natural disasters. The international financial architecture, therefore, must be reformed to address the urgent challenges of today. Our varying needs must be imbedded into the global economic and financial system so that it is more inclusive, fair and responsive to all. This includes developing tailored support and solutions that also facilitate easier access to affordable, long-term finance and address the decline in correspondent banking relations. Likewise, there must be a stronger push to enhance the representation and meaningful participation of SIDS in the global economic and financial institutions. With persistent economic contractions and rising levels of debt, access to grants and concessional financing is critical for our economic recovery, building resilience and avoiding further debt distress. In this context, we look forward to the implementation of the multidimensional vulnerability index (MVI) to enhance the suite of tools that is currently used to guide decision- making on access issues. We call for collective support to take this financing priorities to the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in 2025, to ensure democratization of the global economic governance, recognizing the right of every country to be at the decision-making table, and not only those with concentrated power or resources. Mr. President, Vanuatu, like many of our Pacific neighbors, continue to face acute and existential health and development threats including the burden of noncommunicable diseases and malnutrition and threats from future pandemics. COVID-19 and severe tropical cyclones exposed Vanuatu to its fragile health infrastructure and the need to invest in a health system that can better respond to the needs of its people and to future pandemics that will be resilient to climate change and related natural disasters. We urge the World Health Organization and SIDS partners to work together to enhance access to sustainable financing to support our efforts to prevent and control NCDs and our efforts to build a health system fit for purpose. Mr. President Advancing the agenda of leaving no one behind in the context of the Non-Self- Governing territories means that we must work constructively to completing the work of decolonization. In the past few months, the first people of New Caledonia were not content with the manner in which the third referendum for political independence from France was conducted. As a result, riots took place which led to several deaths and stalling of economic activity. The right of the first people to their lands, oceans and culture must be recognized and respected. I urged the first people of New Caledonia to work together with France to address their political future. In the meantime, New Caledonia must remain in the decolonization list. In a similar vein, we call for the right of the first people in West Papua over their customary land and culture must be respected and I plead that they work mutually with the Government of Indonesia to address their challenges and for greater autonomy to be accorded to West Papua for greater participation in decision making. Mr President, To achieve sustainable development, we need peace. Today some regions of the world are not able to enjoy sustainable development due to the inability of the United Nations to maintain international peace and security. We call for the urgent reform of the UN Security Council to ensure it is fit for purpose and able to meet the challenges of our time. We are deeply concerned over the greatest threat to international peace and security posed by the continued existence of nuclear weapons. With the current heightened global geopolitical tensions, we call for a renewed and strengthened effort to resolve the current impasse in achieving nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation in all its aspects. We further call for the respect of the UN Charter. Mr. President, In today’s fractured and polarised world, we need to accelerate our efforts to work together and rebuild trust in the multilateral system, the UN at its centre. The Summit of the Future offers us hope and now we need to move from rhetoric to real actions on the ground. We need peace for the advancement of sustainable development and human dignity for the present and future generations. We need action on finance as fuel for development. So let us work together for the next six years to accelerate sustainable development progress for our people and our planet. I thank you!--ENDS CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
