The President of the United Nations Basic Meeting (PGA), Dennis Francis, addressed delegates on the shut of the UN Basic Meeting’s first-ever Sustainability Week at the moment, wrapping up 5 days of thematic discussions and calling for concerted and accelerated motion on debt sustainability, in addition to sustainable tourism, transport, infrastructure connectivity and vitality.
Talking on the World Stocktake on Sustainable Power for All, the PGA mentioned, “The previous decade has seen renewable vitality surge in each nook of the globe, albeit not but on the tempo or scale required to both energy the lives of all folks, all over the place, nor to rein within the worst impacts of local weather change. We have to speed up the transitions to a clear and renewable vitality programs, all of the whereas recognizing totally different nationwide conditions, priorities, pathways, and approaches.”
Recognizing the immense strides made in securing sustainable vitality for all, but the persistent gaps that stay, PGA issued a Name to Motion, which included extending entry to electrical energy for over 600 million folks; offering clear cooking options to over 2 billion folks; quickly accelerating the transitions to scrub, renewable vitality; dramatically scaling up finance and funding for creating international locations; and boosting public-private partnerships, significantly for know-how switch for least developed international locations.
PGA added, “I urgently name on Member States and different stakeholders, encompassing the UN system, civil society, personal sector, ladies, youth, academia, amongst others, to observe up on the United Nations Decade of Sustainable Power for All, in addition to to maintain and strengthen worldwide dialogue and cooperation on vitality on the UN, together with via a possible UN convention on vitality.”
Held from 15-19 April, the UN Basic Meeting Sustainability Week included high-level occasions on sustainable debt and socio-economic equality; sustainable tourism; sustainable transport; infrastructure connectivity; and the World Stocktake marking the tip of the UN’s Decade for Sustainable Power for All.
Earlier within the week, through the high-level assembly on tourism, PGA welcomed the Basic Meeting’s endorsement of the Statistical Framework on Measuring Sustainability in Tourism. PGA will even submit, as an end result of the Excessive-Degree Assembly on Sustainable Transport, his contribution to the implementation plan for the UN Decade on Sustainable Transport.
Amongst the high-level audio system and representatives had been Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, and Robinah Nabbanja, Prime Minister of the Republic of Uganda, who addressed the opening session on debt sustainability. Andrzej Duda, President of the Republic of Poland, offered keynote remarks to the Excessive-Degree Assembly on Infrastructure Connectivity.
With a Presidency buffered between the 2023 SDG Summit, in September 2023, and the 2024 Summit of the Future, PGA used Sustainability Week to emphasise sector-by-sector progress throughout the Sustainable Growth Targets.
On the identical time, and recognizing the necessity for particular person actions, PGA launched a marketing campaign, known as #ChooseSustainability, to encourage Member States, Missions, delegates, UN Employees and most people to decide to sustainable actions. Together with the participation of dozens of Member States and Everlasting Missions to the UN, the marketing campaign additionally noticed over 150,000 ‘actions’ declared on the UN’s Act Now app.
PGA mentioned, “I’m deeply grateful to all those that joined us and selected sustainability; however this isn’t a one-off and I absolutely intend to proceed emphasizing this name to motion all through the rest of my Presidency and within the lead-up to the Summit of the Future, in September.”
