Mr. President,
I have the honour to speak on behalf of the Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
We thank the offices of the UN Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for the convening of this valuable full-day discussion and the panelists for their engaging interventions.
Mr President,
The global community stands at a crossroad and our destinies are interdependent. With the antrophogenic climate change being an undisputable fact, we can no longer turn a blind eye to the threats of global warming facing mankind today.
The damaging consequences of climate change are increasingly felt by people and communities around the world. Climate change poses severe challenges for many island states and low-lying coastal lands. And in its backwashes we see how human beings are deprived of some of their basic human rights – civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural.
We cannot wait to take action but need to step up efforts now, before a new agreement enters into force. We should build upon the Secretary General’s Climate summit and explore ways and means for enhanced action on mitigation ambition from all parties, in accordance with their respective capacities. In addition, we should set out a long term goal or emissions pathway that, in line with the latest finding of the IPPC, ensures an aggregate emission pathway consistent with having a likely chance of ensuring that the below 2 degree Celsius objecive is achieved.
The consequences of climate change and the human rights implications following in its wake target unevenly and unjustly. They foremost affect the lives of those already most marginalized in society due to the intersecting structures of oppression and discrimination based on gender, race, poverty, minority status, class and other forms of social injustice. This is not least true in relation to women and girls.
It is paramount that the international community as a whole strives to reach a global, fair and legally binding climate agreement applicable to all in this year’s climate conference in Paris.
Pursuing positive signals in Geneva, we should strive to ensure that the new agreements contain a reference to human rights, as well as gender and just transition of workforce.
I thank you, Mr President.