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Mr. President, congratulations on your successful election as President of the 81st Session of the UN General Assembly. Secretary-General Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, Alii and warm greetings from the people of Palau. Secretary-General António Guterres, thank you for your leadership and service to the United Nations. Your climate leadership, steadfast defense of multilateralism, international law, human dignity, and the voices of the vulnerable carries a special meaning for small island developing states. I stand before this Assembly for a people whose future depends on a healthy ocean and a stable climate, and the sovereign right to determine their own path. For us, sovereignty is lived in our ability to feed our people from healthy oceans, power our homes independently from distant fuel markets, and protect our shorelines from rising seas and chart our own path.
Mr. president, as a low lying atoll nation with no higher ground, sea level rise is an immediate and stark reality. This week's UN high level meeting on sea level rise has helped achieve new understanding in international law. It is the seas that are rising around us and not our islands which are sinking. Our boundaries and baselines of today. The political footprint on the map will endure in the face of aggressive sea level rise scenarios. Our collective stability and security as Pacific Islands Forum members and as a UN member state will be now better addressed. As an atoll nation, our tide gauge is proof enough that far more action is needed, and we are acting. Confronted with rising seas on our most vulnerable shorelines. We completed the Ebeye Seawall and Footpath last week. 1.8km of oceanside protection built with support from the World Bank, the Green Climate Fund and our own resources. Engineered for rising seas, it now protects 8,400 people and critical energy infrastructure, reduces annual coastal flooding losses and anchors resilient future development on Ebeye, including schools, housing and the proposed new hospital, while providing a safe public space that strengthens community wellbeing. It cost $75 million, took 70,000 tonnes of rocks, took more than a decade to do, and it is just one island of over a thousand. We are taking action and we urgently need strengthened partnership to better protect our islands before sea level rise overtakes us. Mr. president, my nation underscores the importance of the law of the sea as a key pillar of our future. Even before we were a UN member, we fought closely both to participate in UN law of the sea negotiations and to secure these rights in our Constitution. Pacific Island leadership and that of all small island developing states has defined every multilateral milestone for oceans and fisheries. And we will continue to do so. As an ocean people, the consequences of getting it wrong are not from distant impacts, but adjacent to our waters, particularly in the North Pacific, both within the International Seabed Authority and unilateral actions. Collectively, the people and voices of Micronesia must be heard. We are joined by Guam, Northern Marianas, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau in expressing our alarm at seabed mining actions where the decisions are made before impacts are well understood and where adequate safeguards remain undefined. The Marshall Islands joins 45 nations seeking a moratorium on seabed mining. Responsible and science driven regulations need to be in place. Going on guesswork for global oceans is beyond dangerous. There are no do overs. The Marshall Islands looks forward to the first Conference of Parties to the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction, to work across silos to advance high seas protection. We urge wide ratification of the agreement. The Marshall Islands looks forward to supporting its secretariat in a host nation, committed to upholding the law of the sea as a matter of both principle and law, in words and in actions. Mr. president, too often the word geopolitics is considered to refer only to the whims of superpowers and not the reality of our fragile place between them.
Second, we call on the next Secretary-General to provide strong leadership across the UN's development and human rights pillars. The authors of the UN Charter understood that peace and security cannot be sustained without creating the conditions for Member States to provide their citizens with prosperity and the full enjoyment of human rights. With significant changes in the global development cooperation landscape, we ask you to ensure that the UN is clear about where its comparative advantage lies, alongside the role of governments, regional organisations and international financial institutions. Citizens and donors expect the UN to operate as one, with agencies working together through a strengthened Resident coordinator system. We will work with you to ensure the UN is more coordinated and focused on strengthening local capacity and partnerships to address a country's development needs. The UN development system must remain relevant, responsive and accessible to all member states based on need rather than size, income level or location. We welcome progress in advancing the UN's Multidimensional Vulnerability Index, and want to see further work to ensure its practical application across the multilateral development system. In the face of contracting development finance flows and increasing debt levels, we need to ensure our ambitions are matched by more sustainable and predictable financing. This will inevitably involve moving beyond exclusive reliance on traditional sources and approaches. President, as Pacific Islands Forum leaders recently reaffirmed in Palau, climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of Pacific peoples.
