President of the UN General Assembly
H.E Dennis Francis
at the Press Briefing on Pacific Islands Forum and COP28
29 November 2023
(Transcript Verbatim)
Video link: https://tinyurl.com/27xu6zrj
Good afternoon colleagues and welcome to this press conference.
Thank you for joining today’s briefing.
I would like to take a few moments to reflect on the recent visit to the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting, in the Cook Islands, as well as look ahead to my impending visit to COP28 in Dubai.
Firstly, the visit to the Cook Islands was at the invitation of the Prime Minister and was intended to shore up support for Small Island Developing States facing the existential threats of sea-level rise.
I say threats, plural, because it is not only about displacement or loss of land and territory; it is also about the legal and cultural aspects of such a loss.
What happens to a nation’s maritime boundaries as small atolls disappear?
What happens to the air and maritime rights of such a country?
Does this affect the sovereignty or statehood of Small Island Developing States?
Linked to these questions are deeper concerns around losing culture, identity, and heritage. Many Small Island Developing States have millennia of history, going back to early seafarers; their traditions, like their islands, are nearly pristine, protected and evolving in their unique, ecosystem. All of that can be washed away as people are dispersed by the impacts of climate change.
As President of the General Assembly, I went to reassure Leaders that the UN General Assembly recognizes their concerns and is intent on taking the necessary actions to protect homes, homelands, and heritage. I am committed to support the work of the Director-General of International Organization of Migration (IOM), as well as the Director-General of UNESCO, to address the issues of climate mobility and heritage, respectively.
And I welcome the political declaration that was adopted at the conclusion of the PIF Leaders Meeting on affirming that international law supports a presumption of continuity of statehood and does not contemplate its demise in the context of climate change-related sea-level rise.
This brings me to COP28.
I will travel today and remain in Dubai until Sunday the 3rd of December. I will participate in the World Leader’s Summit and other high-level events, as well as co-host a number of high-level events and roundtables.
The messages I will take with me to the COP28 include:
- The need to conclude work and operationalize the funds and funding arrangements for Loss and Damage. Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries, and Small Island Developing States need these resources to reconcile the impacts of climate change on their communities.
- The need to support the COP28 Presidency’s bid to triple renewable energy capacity. This is the only sure way to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and keep 1.5 alive.
- The need to scale up support urgently and dramatically for adaptation, including delivering on a Global Goal on Adaptation and exponentially driving up finances.
- And finally, but most importantly, the need for unity and solidarity. The international community must demonstrate to the people of the world that we can deliver. We need a win, and COP28 can be that win.
With that, I look forward to your questions.
Thank you.
Question and Answers:
Question: Valeria Robecco-UNCA President:
My question is on the Middle East. These few days of pause maybe like the new extension gives all sides some breathing space, but the critical question now is what happens whenever the negotiated truce expires or since there is more pressure every day for this truce to become a permanent ceasefire. If you’re hopeful that this can be a possibility in the near future? Thank you so much.
PGA: Thank you for the question.
I have to say that in diplomacy all things are possible. Once the two sides and the interested parties, sit around the table and begin a conversation. We do not know where that will lead. But if you go back in the records, you will see that from the very inception of this crisis, on the 7th of October, I have consistently called for a ceasefire. ceasefire, absolute ceasefire.
And the reason for this is clear.
Because violence begets violence. It doesn’t solve the problem.
You need the political engagement to get to a solution. And because consistent with the beliefs of the UN, they need to save lives. Once hostilities are taking place, lives are under threat, imminent threat.
And we’ve seen the consequence of that with approximately 15,000 people making the ultimate sacrifice, in five weeks, that clearly is unsustainable and does nothing to solve the problem.
So, I welcome the pause. I welcome the extension. I would like to see the pause be converted into complete ceasefire. So that, other things that need to happen, conversationally, a political process can then begin.
Spokesperson: Thank you, Mr. President. I see you as you raise your hands. I have Ahmed Fathi, afterwards Benno and Stefano.
Question: Can you please expand a little bit about the fate or the future of the island nations that have the threat to be going underwater, especially in the South Pacific. And you said that you want to make sure that these States do not demise? How then can they continue to exist as a State if they have no land? I remember, from a few years back, that the island nation of Fiji has agreed to accept the citizens of Palau, another UN member, to move to Fiji, if the island is being drown underwater. So, can you expand a little bit on this legal issue? Thank you.
PGA: Sure. Well, let’s go to first principles. All nations, may, if they so choose, if they qualify, seek membership of the United Nations. But for that to happen, you must have a defined territory. Defined meaning “your international borders must be established and recognized internationally”.
What Small Island Developing States are facing, particularly those in the Pacific, is the imminent rise of sea levels as a consequence of global warming. And, more specifically, this is related to the fact of the ice melt taking place in Antarctica and in other parts of the world.
What it can mean, effectively, in the case, for example, of Tuvalu is that perhaps by 2050 the island of Tuvalu would have been largely submerged, inundated and maybe the people of Tuvalu will have to relocate to some alternative place that can become their home.
But what is at stake here is not simply the loss of land as terrifying and worrying as that is. Other things are also at stake. People, everywhere, but including on islands who have inhabited islands for decades for hundreds of years. There is something typically referred to as island culture. It’s not the same on every island. Every island has its own peculiarities, what makes it unique and distinct. A sort of national identity and I saw this dramatically in the Cook Islands. That, once people are relocated, there is a great risk that that disappears.
The heritage that would have been built up through transmitting intergenerationally customs and practices also become at risk. So, you have a complex situation in which the land has disappeared. But when the land disappears, does it mean that the State disappears? Because that State would have been a member of the United Nations. Membership of which accords it, vests in it certain rights, responsibilities, and obligations, that are typical of all States.
Do those rights disappear with the land being submerged? International law has not addressed this question. There is a gap.
Why is this important? It’s important for a number of reasons. Because those of you, who have taken the time to read a little bit more in international law, would know that the territory of a State exists in two dimensions: above the water and beneath the water.
There is something called the continental shelf that extends way out in some cases. That is land beneath the sea. And in many states the international law provides that you exercise sovereignty control over something called the territorial sea, which is 12 miles off your coast.
That is part of your national territory, but you exercise economic sovereignty also over an adjoining zone, called the exclusive economic zone.
So, all the fisheries, all the assets that exist, in that exclusive economic zone, belong to the coastal State. It means therefore, in the case of the Pacific Islands, if those islands should become submerged, and they no longer exist as land territory. What does that mean? What are the implications for the exercise of their rights over what would have been before their exclusive economic zone? And does it happen, beyond that zone in something called the deep seabed. This sounds very academic, but this is real.
In the Pacific Islands, beyond that zone, there are extraordinary deposits on the seabed of something called poly manganese nodules, rich in metals, molybdenum, cobalt, all sorts of things. These things can be as large as a grape or maybe even as large as, I don’t know, a pumpkin. And they are produced by the Earth’s crust. Under international law, all of the resources in that area in the deep seabed, are not under the control of any single nation. They constitute something called the common heritage of mankind and are to be shared equally and equitably among all states in the systems.
So, what happens to those deposits in the Pacific? If those States go underwater, are their rights suspended? Or will they lose their rights over those resources? Nothing said in the existing international law on that. And so, rarely and truly, even if they were to relocate and go somewhere else to live, are they simply to become a charge on the exchequer of the country that is hosting them? Would they be able to generate their own resources and income from those resources that they control? And so, there is a need for the international law to bring clarity to this issue. Because what is at stake is their very existence as States in addition to the livelihoods and heritage and culture, of a people that might have lived on those lands which thousands of years, in which certain practices would have been handed down generationally. And if this is to be the fate of Small Island Developing States, which I believe it’s a fairly significant number of States that would confront and confront this problem.
Then it is a problem that warrants the attention and treatment by the international community. Because it is not going to go away. It is going to affect a substantial number of members of the international community and questions about their rights need to be resolved for practical reasons. That is the reason I went to the Pacific Islands because they are at increased risk of inundation. I mean, you can see the evidence of it when you drive around the coastline. These are people who… Imagine what it would mean if any of us, or families, having lived on land for 500 years, 1000 years, had to get up and relocate into a strange, unfamiliar place and start all over again?
So, it’s not an easy thing. So, this is an urgent problem that demands the attention of the international community and to relate it back to COP. Where there is an urgency for the COP to take the strategic decisions that would be necessary to alter the cause of climate change; to reduce the rate of warming of the atmospheric temperatures in order to give Small Island Developing States, such as those in the Caribbean, and in the Pacific, a fighting chance.
You’ll notice that I’m wearing a pin that says 1.5 degrees. I’ve worn the spin for several, several months. In fact, even before I became the PGA, I started wearing this pin because this 1.5 degrees is the threshold temperature that SIDs are demanding, should be observed. There are some who says it should be 2oC. But 2 degrees would imperil SIDS.
So, it’s a matter of strategic law lobbying, in a way, that I wear the pin because this really is for SIDs an existential issue. When we say it, it is not an exaggeration, and it’s not cliche, it is real. People’s lives and livelihoods are at stake and their very survival is at stake.
Spokesperson: Thank you, PGA. We have Benno, Deutsche Presse Agentur…
Question: Thank you PGA for the briefing. Thank you, Monica. I actually wanted to ask you about your pin: 1.5 degrees Celsius, that is still the goal, but it seems like wishful thinking, more and more. Scientists say that is increasingly unlikely because the big emitters don’t do enough. And my question would have been, but you kind of answered it as well: When is the time to shift to another number.
PGA: We are not going to shift to another number…
Benno – DPA: Yeah, but will you wear that like for the next 20 years?
PGA: Well, you are right. There is evidence that not enough has been done and is being done to meet the 1.5 (degrees Celsius),
And truth be told, because of the damage that was already been done to the atmosphere, even, the advocates of the 1.5 are aware, that even if we were to achieve this 1.5 there would still be warming beyond the 1.5 degrees. The issue is to keep the rate of warming, as low as possible, because the lower the rate, the less severe the impacts of climate change.
As you know, the scientists have also said that, as the Secretary-General referred recently to global warming as “global boiling”, and what this means is more virulent, more frequent, climate extremes, very destructive, and very difficult. Making it very difficult for Small Island Developing States, for example, who must be rebuilding infrastructure, every three or four years, into context. If you live in the Caribbean, or in the Pacific, when it is hurricane season, you will literally be walking on eggshells, because you’re aware that one hurricane, one, can devastate an entire island and destroy its economy in a shorter time as maybe 12 hours.
Imagine your GDP is gone, as the French say: tout à coup “All of a sudden”. There is no work, there is no water, no power, no electricity.
The place becomes impassable because roads necessary infrastructure is destroyed. Telecommunications, connections, electricity, road connections, bridges, communities are isolated. These are the real impacts of climate change that we are living with now, and that is why it is so urgent for the international community to show bold leadership, to step up and do what needs to be done to assist and support developing countries, in the Global South, to cope more effectively with climate change.
Spokesperson: Steffano, you have the next question.
Question: Mr. President. Like you say, in diplomacy everything is possible. So, my question is this: You know, we have been here for some time now. The President of the General Assembly is difficult to remember. You remember, maybe, names but what they did, you know? If you told me about the president, five years ago, 10 years ago… the only one I remember, for what he did, for example, was the 70th president, the Danish, Mogens Lykketoft, because he left us an election of the Secretary-General, that was more transparent. For that (reason). So, my question to you is this. You have another about roughly seven months before the is an election of the next president. And maybe you already did or maybe you are planning to do it. But what’s going to be the issue, maybe you already told us, what are you going to fight for, to leave the mark, so hopefully, in 10 years from now, we will not only remember your name, but also what you did?
PGA: Well, this is the issue of sea level rise and in working to ensure that we clarify the issue in order to give countries in this circumstance: clarity, predictability, and certainty about their future. Because as I said before, international law is totally silent on this.
Climate change did not exist in the way that it does now, 30 years ago, it didn’t exist. So, this is the defining issue. It would be one of the defining issues that I hope that would be addressed, meaningfully and effectively by the international community. Because of its widespread impact on a large group of States. Many of them small but in a system, in which small States, continuously, have made a very valuable contribution. My own country, Trinidad and Tobago, was extremely active, unrecognized to be so, in the realm of international law, and in particular in the law of the sea. There is internationally recognized, international lawyer, the late Lennox Bala, who wrote paragraphs and paragraphs, in the Law of the Sea Convention that unblocked difficult disagreements during the negotiations.
The point I am making is that small countries, and there are many, many of them, have made and continue to make, have the potential to make large contributions, disproportionately large, in terms of their size, to international relations, to the United Nations and to multilateral diplomacy.
Trinidad and Tobago also, you may or may not be aware, was one of the key players that created, along with others, the International Criminal Court. So, multilateral diplomacy, and the UN system, contrary to what many people believe is not a forum for the big and powerful only. It is a forum for all because the real power is in the power of principles and the power of preparation. And no country, regardless of how large or how small, has a monopoly on intellectual capacities.
So that is the value and that is why we need to preserve and to help these small islands to continue to exist. Because who knows? Perhaps some invention that might change the course of human history might come from one of those islands in the Pacific.
Spokesperson: Thank you, Mr. President and before we give the floor to a colleague here, we go online. If you are online, please speak up. Otherwise, we give the floor to a colleague here. Arul Louis, please go ahead.
Question: I have a question about how countries are treated in terms of their greenhouse output. For example, one lists China, USA and India as biggest polluters, but if you look at the per capita emissions, they are low compared to a lot of other countries in the industrialized world. So, when the sort of, you know, take the per capita output, for example, in the case of the US, it got more than twice that of China, and nearly eight times out of India. So, wouldn’t that mean that countries like that how do we be treated on a per capita basis, which might mean a severe changes in their lifestyles and so forth? The producers of greenhouse gases have historically been huge producers, what gave them a leg up in terms of the industrialization and quality of life. Thank you.
PGA: Well. I understand the question you are asking. However, the fact of the matter is that what is required, and in fact the climate agreement acknowledges this: countries are required to make a contribution to the system, based on their capacity to do so. In other words: it would be unreasonable and impractical to require a small country, like let’s say, Suriname, which in fact, the country of Suriname, a Caribbean country is, is actually Climate Neutral.
They virtually have almost no carbon footprint at all. So, it would not be reasonable to expect Suriname to make a contribution that is no different from the contribution that a large emitting country would make. The system is structured in such a way that the contribution you make to a greenhouse gas reduction is proportionate to your contribution to the carbonization of the atmosphere. And therefore, what it means, is that you have different levels of contribution. It is true that some countries have used hydrocarbon energy to develop, and now they’re asking that this be changed. But we have to deal with the situation as it exists now. And as it exists now, the science has demonstrated, irrefutably, that we cannot continue on the on the current trajectory. It is imperiling life, as we know it on this planet, and the planetary ecosystems themselves in every part of the world.
It is it is impossible to deny the catastrophic effects and impacts of climate change, drought, flooding, forest fires, coral bleaching, it is all there. And so, as an international community, we need to work together, cooperatively, to find a solution to this problem, because if we don’t do so, our existence on this planet will not continue in the way we know it now. Radical change will result and most of that changes would not be in the interest of human civilization.
Spokesperson: Thank you, President Francis, we go to Volodymyr. I think it is the last question…
Volodymyr: In your opinion, to what extent, do the current wars, in particular Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, prevent humanity from fighting global warming?
PGA: Well, that is an interesting question, I have to say, I haven’t given very much thought to it, but fighting climate change and global warming has to be a team effort. It’s the only effective way to do it. And the team has to be the entire international community, okay. It would have been preferable, certainly, not to be forced to be doing so in the context of wars raging around. That is not a choice that we made. It happened. So we have to do both.
We have to deal with the peace and security issue. But we also have to deal with the developmental related issue. Because climate change, the climate crisis is a development issue. It is an issue of development. And so given that it’s an issue of development and given the requirement that funding is made available, in order to assist and support those, who do not themselves have the wherewithal to undertake the reforms that are necessary in order to stabilize the climate. The opportunity for that funding to come forward, I suppose may well be complicated by the existence of these other situations that demand expansive resource allocations. However, the international community has a choice: we can do nothing or do little as we have been doing on climate change and watch that which human beings have devoted themselves to for centuries, the development to lift our quality of life, to watch it all go away or do something decisive, to protect our way of life, to protect the planet so that the planet is able to sustain us into longevity, and to ensure that those of us who follow the future generations are able to live in a safe, healthy environment, because we took the steps necessary to protect the environment and to protect the planet.
Spokesperson: Thank you very much, Mr. President. Do we have anyone online? Please go ahead.
Question: Yes. Thank you, Monica, and thank you Mr. President for doing this. I want to ask about Bangladesh. Obviously, Bangladesh is very vulnerable on climate change. You know, they are the most polluted country in the region where Bangladesh is. And the most vulnerable on democracy as well. I want to, specifically, I need to know what initiative, the UN, and as President, you are taking for Bangladesh, as one of the critical member states moving in a dark way, in other way around. As you noticed, probably, the Bangladesh regime declared elections scheduled on January 7, and systematic crackdown on opposition, putting the opposition leader in jail. So, what is your comment and what initiative you are taking as the President of the General Assembly to ensuring the voting rights and democratic rights of the people of Bangladesh. Thank you.
PGA: I should say that the issue of the Bangladesh elections is not on the agenda of the General Assembly of the United Nations. It is not there. So, the only comment that I would make in relation to the question that you ask is that I would hope that Bangladesh, which has a long and strong tradition of democratic governance, realizes the importance of honoring that tradition and that the impending elections will be free and fair. And can be certified to be free and fair. That would be in the best interest of the people of Bangladesh. And it would certainly, I believe, strengthen their potential to maintain and even expand their relationships with the United Nations and with the international system. Democracy is an extremely important foundation upon which sustainable development can be pursued and Bangladesh needs to support sustainable development consistent with agenda 2030. So best of luck in your democratic elections.
END
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