DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 21JAN16 – Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations, New York delivers a speech during the session ‘The New Climate and Development Imperative’ at the Annual Meeting 2016 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2016. WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM/swiss-image.ch/Photo Valeriano Di Domenico
One of the highlights of the World Economic Forum 2016 in Davos, which is coming to an end today, was undoubtedly the inspiring speech made by the UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon. This took place in the evening of the second day of this year’s WEF and the whole world was tuned to listen to UN’s next steps on the aftermath of the COP21 agreement sealed in Paris at the end of last year.
Mr Ban Ki-moon made it clear right from the beginning of his speech that there are two topics in his current agenda: COP21 and the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals, known as SDGs. He also reminded to the high level public that last year he came to Davos to ask for the support of the world leaders both for COP21 and the 17 SDGs. This year the reason he came is to thank the world community for the strong support that lead to both successes. Besides, the President of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim had called him previously the man that had the “best year” in 2016.
The UN top official later stressed that from 2016 on we need to shoulder the implementation of the two big successes in 2015, 17 SDGs and COP21 agreement. At the World Energy Future Summit in Abu Dhabi that he attended last week a young student in Africa said: “this is where i will put the solar panels and is where my future begins”. Like this the South Korean politician wanted to accentuate the link between climate and development. “We need to scale up the sustainable energy sources especially in the developing world”, he thus underscored.
Most importantly, Mr Ban Ki-moon went straight to the point by segregating the COP21 agreement as only one of the Sustainable Development Goals (17 SDGs). “SDGs and Climate agreement must go together…all 17 goals including climate agreement must come hand in hand”, he declared. He reassured though that “the Paris agreement will reinforce climate action and make importnat contribution to SDGs”.
“If we do not do properly the Paris agreement, then all 16 goals will be undermined!”, he cautioned. He elaborated on that by arguing that natural disasters undermine our goals and our economies and he gave some examples about that. He showed his certainty that “around the world more and more people understand that climate resilience supports progress”. Hence, the world will engage in public-private partnerships valued with multi trillions of dollar projects, in order to limit global temperature below the threshold of 2 C or even below 1,5 C.
The world today is facing an unprecedented opportunity for clean energy and climate resilient economies. The market mechanism to support the growth of carbon pricing will contribute to this direction, the UN leader reaffirmed. “The direction of travel is clear” and there are 5 steps to move us forward, he underlined:
- “National climate plans must urgently be converted into bankable investment strategies and projects”.
- “We must generate sufficient financing for developing countries to bi-passs fossil fuels and meet high energy demands with low carbon sources”
- “We need great attention and resources for climate resilience. That is why I launch a new climate resilience initiative in Paris that is called A2R, to anticipate risks, observe shocks and adapt development approaches”.
- “Increase climate actions at every level… public-private partnership”.
- “Governments must quickly ratify the Paris agreement so that it will become effective. I am inviting all heads of state and government for signing ceremony at UN Headquarters on April 22”.
Stay tuned from 20 to 23 January as the Sting will be once more producing top class critical LIVE media coverage from the Congress Centre in Davos, Switzerland.
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