Minister Barbara Creecy: pathways to 2030 - what must a transformation that leaves no one behind look like? | UNFCCC PRE-COP 28 ministerial meeting
South Africa expresses its appreciation to the United Arab Emirates for its hospitality and to His Excellency Sultan al Jaber for opening the pre-CoP with a framing session that reminds us of the imperative of locating climate action in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, leaving no one behind.
Our work at CoP28 needs to send overarching political signals that the objective of multilateralism is to build human solidarity by supporting each other to face shared challenges and to work together to achieve a more inclusive, just, equitable, sustainable and climate-resilient world.
In these times of multidimensional crises, where many societies - especially in the developing world - are suffering grave setbacks, we need CoP28 to send a message of hope. We need to show that the means of implementation will be available to support the development pathways chosen by parties to reach our shared climate objectives. We further need to send a message on the urgent need to address the economic, social and environmental aspects of climate change, based on the best available science.
CoP28 outcomes should be measured in terms of how fair these are, both within and between societies, and how they contribute towards the sustainable development agenda and implementation of the Convention and its Paris Agreement. There is no place at CoP28 for outcomes that are not informed by equity, science and CBDR&RC, or for one-size-fits-all policy prescriptions that fail to acknowledge the different responsibilities, capacities and national circumstances that exist in our diverse and unfair world. We need to move past negotiating through empty mitigation-centric target setting soundbites and to be clear that for developing countries, true ambition is only possible where it is matched with multilateral support at a sufficient scale. This is all specified in the Paris Agreement.
South Africa sees great potential for CoP28 to be remembered as a transformative event, where course corrections were agreed that will put us on track to implement the convention and its Paris Agreement. This is because we have the special opportunities presented by the outcome of the first global stocktake, and the deliberations and decision on the scope and modalities of the Just Transition Pathways Work Programme agreed to in Sharm el-Sheikh.
These two agenda items are strategic and crosscutting in nature and provide us with an opportunity to contribute towards global systems transformation and to provide practical support to parties with their just transitions plans, in the context of sustainable development. Let us seize this opportunity to address all CoP28 items in a comprehensive and inclusive manner, in support of people-centered sustainable development.
I thank you.
