YouSaid · the spoken record

Gordon Brown

lines on the record: 33
first: 2008-09-24
most recent: 2009-09-24
sittings or episodes: 2
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I believe that if we take the right decisions and work together, we are in the business of creating for the first time in human history a truly global society. It is a name to be wished for and an aim to be fought for by all of us.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Let us remember how in 1945, as the United Nations was being created, countries faced a multiplicity of challenges but summoned up the energy and vision not just to rebuild from the ruin and rubble of a war, but to establish a new international order for shared security and progress. I believe that these same principles must now inspire new and better, more representative and more effective ways of cooperating globally together. And as we learn from the experience of turning common purpose into common action in this our shared global society, so we must forge a progressive multilateralism for this era, one that depends upon us finding within ourselves and together the qualities of moral courage and leadership that for our time and for our generation can make this world anew.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Today at this United Nations General Assembly, we will see history being made with the beginnings of universal free health care in Africa and Asia as Burundi, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Nepal, Liberia and Ghana all make major announcements, which I applaud, that extend free health care and abolish user fees. As a result of those actions, more than 10 million additional people in Africa and Asia will now have access to free health services — 10 million people who will now for the first time get the treatment they need without being turned away or fearing how they will pay. I urge you all to match the leadership of these countries with your own support, and I commit the United Kingdom to giving that support.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“As President Obama has said, we need a global plan to make the Millennium Development Goals a reality. The unyielding, grinding, soul-destroying, so often lethal poverty I saw in Africa and other developing countries has convinced me that unless empowerment through trade justice is matched by empowerment through free education and free health care, then this generation in sub-Saharan Africa will not have the opportunity they deserve to rise out of poverty and will never be fully free. 09-52179 54 I believe the greatest of injustice demands the boldest of actions.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“In London, the G-20 agreed on measures worth $50 billion for poor countries to help them weather the crisis. Because of London, the International Monetary Fund can lend $8 billion instead of $2 billion over this year and next. This is already helping Kenya and Tanzania to increase Government spending in response to the crisis. Amid all these challenges, we must remember a fundamental promise we made 10 years ago. And this is my fifth and final imperative: to achieve a vision for 2015 that we are in danger of betraying, because on present trends it will not take five years — as we pledged — and not even 50 years; it will take more than 100 years to deliver on some of our Millennium Development Goals. And 100 years is too long for the peoples of our countries to wait for the justice that has been promised.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“I believe we need stronger economic cooperation now as we navigate the uncertainties of recovery. I therefore propose we launch the compact by agreeing that we are committed to high levels of growth on a sustainable and balanced basis. This must be backed up by comprehensive reform of the financial sector. It must include international principles on bonuses. We must strengthen our targeting of tax havens. From next month, real sanctions must be meted out against those jurisdictions that fail to meet global standards. The voice of Africa will have to be heard and heeded to bring recovery in areas devastated by the events of the past year and to assure that for all developing countries, inside and outside Africa, we do not put the Millennium Development Goals beyond reach as a result of a wider failure of global responsibility.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“We have delivered a coordinated monetary and fiscal response that the International Labour Organization estimates has saved 7 million to 11 million jobs across the world. So at Pittsburgh, when the Group of 20 (G-20) meets tomorrow, we must cement a global compact for jobs and growth — a compact to bring unemployment down and bring rising prosperity across the globe. We must maximize the impact of the stimulus measures we have agreed. There must be proper planning of exit strategies together to make sure the recovery does not falter. We do not and must not turn off the life support for our economy prematurely. We must also facilitate agreement setting clear objectives on how each of us can contribute to worldwide growth in the future, and we must ensure that such future growth is balanced and sustainable.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“My third point is that all nuclear-weapon States must reciprocally play their part in reducing nuclear weapons as part of an agreement by non-nuclear States to renounce them. This is exactly what the Non-Proliferation Treaty intended, and in line with maintaining our nuclear deterrent I have asked our National Security Committee to report to me on the potential future reduction of our nuclear weapon submarines from four to three. While economic cooperation has stabilized the international banking system and forged the foundation for the resumption of economic growth, recovery is neither entrenched nor irreversible. The great lesson of the past year is that only the bold and global action that we took prevented a recession becoming a depression.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“First, let there be no ambiguity: Iran and North Korea must now know that the world will be even tougher on proliferation. We are ready to consider further sanctions. Britain will insist in future that the onus on non-nuclear States is that in the years ahead it is for them to prove that they are not developing nuclear weapons. Secondly, Britain will offer civil nuclear power to non-nuclear States who are ready to renounce any plans for nuclear weapons, helping non-nuclear States acquire what President Eisenhower so memorably called “atoms for peace”. With others, we will be prepared to sponsor a uranium bank outside those countries to help them access civil nuclear power. And Britain is ready to launch a new nuclear centre of excellence to help develop an economic low-carbon proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel cycle.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“So we must accept that we are at a moment of danger when decades of preventing proliferation could be overturned by a damaging rise in proliferation. If we are serious about the ambition of a nuclear-free world, we will need statesmanship, not brinksmanship. Tomorrow’s Security Council resolution will be vital, in my view, as we move forward towards next year’s global nuclear security summit in April and the Review Conference in May. Our proposal is a grand global bargain between nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-weapon States. There are three elements to it, where careful and sober international leadership is essential and in which Britain will play its part: the responsibilities of non-nuclear States, the rights of 53 09-52179 non-nuclear States and, of course, the responsibilities of nuclear weapon States.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“I believe that it shames us all that the people of Somalia and the Sudan are still subject to the most terrible of violence; that Israel and Palestine have still not found a way to live side by side in security and peace; and that, for the people of Burma, their elected leader is subjected to a show trial and decades of imprisonment. There is more that we can do and more that we must do. And we must carry forward our efforts to make a coherent, strategic and more effective approach to peacekeeping and peacebuilding around the world. Once there were five nuclear-armed Powers. Now there are nine. The real and present danger is that more will soon follow. And the risk is not just State aggression, but the acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“I believe that a safer Afghanistan means a safer world. But none of us can be safe if we walk away from that country or from our common mission and resolve. NATO and its partners, from Australia to Japan to other countries, must agree new ways to implement our strategy. I believe that we must ensure that “Afghanization” takes place — that the army, people and the people of Afghanistan assume greater responsibility for the security of their own country. So, too, must we unite against terror and injustice wherever they are to be found in our world.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“It will provide substantially increased additional and predictable flows. They will be flows of capital from both public and private sectors. They would be worth around $100 billion a year by 2020. In the coming days, we must make progress. A post-2012 agreement on climate change at Copenhagen is the next great test of our global cooperation. Each of us has a duty of leadership to make sure that it happens. We must build on the discussions at Secretary-General Ban’s meeting this week. I have said that I will go to Copenhagen to conclude the deal because I believe that it is too important an agreement — for the global economy, and for the future of every nation represented here — simply to leave it to chance. So I urge my fellow leaders to commit themselves to backing up our official negotiators by going to Copenhagen too.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“And if we do not act together to prevent avoidable illness, there can be no plan to save tomorrow the 12,000 children who are dying in Africa today and every day. So I say we do need world agreement on urgent challenges. Now let me elaborate first on climate change. Despite the promises we have made, the road to a successful outcome in Copenhagen is not assured. Why is that? It is so because, above all, a robust and long- term deal on climate change requires money. If the poorest and most vulnerable are going to be able to adapt; if the emerging economies are going to embark on low-carbon development paths; and if the forest nations are going to slow and stop deforestation, then I know that the richer countries must contribute financially. That is why I have proposed a new approach to financing our action against climate change.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“This is the moment now to limit and reverse the climate change we are inflicting on future generations — not later, not at another conference, not in a later decade, after we have already lost 10 years to inaction and delay. And if, in Afghanistan, we give way to the insurgency and Al-Qaida , other terrorist groups and Al-Qaida will return and, from that sanctuary once again plot, train for and launch attacks on the rest of the world. There can be no chance, either, of a nuclear-free world if we allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons and, in doing so, set off a new arms race. There can be no global compact for jobs and growth if we choke off recovery by failing to act together to follow through on the coordinated global fiscal expansion we agreed and have now put in place.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“I believe that we face five urgent challenges that demand momentous decisions — decisions that I would argue are epoch-making — on climate change, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, shared prosperity and eradicating poverty. Once again, we are at a point of no return. And just as the collapse of the banks focused our minds a year ago, so we must grasp this next set of challenges immediately. If we do not reach a climate change deal at Copenhagen, if we miss this great opportunity to agree together to protect our planet, we cannot hope for an easy second chance some time in the future. There will be no retrospective global agreement to undo the 09-52179 52 damage that we have caused.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Governments came together to begin the fight back against the global recession. We acted in concert, recognizing that national interests could be protected only by serving the common interest, and that in this new global economy, the economy is indivisible and recession anywhere can threaten prosperity everywhere. We reckoned also that, if growth is to be sustained, it has to be shared. Global problems can be mastered only through global solutions. So I think that today we can draw strength from the unprecedented unity that has defined the past year. But we cannot be complacent. For while it may seem strange to say so after a time of such intense global cooperation, our world is now entering a six-month period which may prove even more testing for international cooperation together.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“I stand here to reaffirm the Charter of the United Nations, not to tear it up. I call on every nation to support its universal principles. A year ago, we met on the brink of a global crisis and, as national leaders spoke in turn at this rostrum, the full scale of the danger was becoming clear — a threat not just to jobs, businesses and life savings but, with the imminent risk of failure of the world’s banking system, the prospect of entire countries failing as nations across Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America struggled to access credit. That crisis demanded global action. As never before, the fate of every country rested on the actions of all. And as the fear of the unthinkable took hold, we reached a clear choice: to fail separately or to succeed together. At the G-20 meetings in Washington and again in London, we made our choice.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“For the first time in human history, we have the opportunity to come together around a global covenant, to reframe the international architecture to make it fit for the challenges facing us in the twenty-first century, and to build the first truly global society and global citizenship. Our history is not our destiny, it is what we choose to make it. Let us resolve today to end any irresponsibility, to protect the global public interest by cleaning up the world’s financial system and to reaffirm our commitment to meeting our global responsibilities on trade, poverty, energy and climate change, and let us act upon that as people, as Governments, as nations united. Let history record that ours was a truly global response to the first truly global crisis.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“It is the responsibility of the Government of the Sudan to create the conditions in Darfur that will allow the conflict to end and a new deal for the people of Darfur to be put in place. Justice has to be part of any sustainable peace. Difficulty has never daunted the United Nations. Where we are rebuffed, we are resolute, so we must also send a powerful signal of our support for democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe. We must stand firm against oppression in Burma. We must, as we did yesterday, reaffirm the practical measures that underpin our determination to defeat poverty. Now would be the worst time to turn our back on the Millennium Development Goals. We have reached a unique point in the world’s history.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“In Cyprus, where the United Nations has been present for 30 years and more, we have a real chance of a settlement, thanks to new leadership, which has our support. In Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force is training Afghans to take back their country after two generations of almost constant conflict. When the Afghan Government can deny its land to Al-Qaida and its associates, the international community will have done its job, but the task is hard and long. Progress is encouraging, but must be continued and stepped up. In the Sudan, United Nations peacekeepers help keep the fragile North-South peace agreement in place, but Darfur remains for all of us a disaster.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“Now we must build on the idealism of the era that created those institutions and change and evolve those institutions to meet the challenges of the global age. This United Nations is where the world turns to confront some of its greatest 08-52272 20 challenges. It is where international law is made, where the most acute political problems are addressed, and where the hopes of the world for a better future ultimately rest. For the past 40 years, it has been this United Nations that has been the key forum where the international community has sought peace in the Middle East, and it is the United Nations that must help the next Government of Israel build on the foundations laid by Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas to agree to a two-State solution that guarantees the security of Israel and gives the Palestinians a viable State.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“As Governments and as nations, we must respond with courage and vision to the new insecurities that face people, because while the global changes happening all around us are complex, the instincts they summon up in people are not. We must resist those instincts that are protectionist. Now is not the time to pull up the drawbridge, to seek solace in isolation or to revert to an outdated and futile protectionism. It is only by maintaining our open, flexible and dynamic economies that we can best secure people’s jobs, homes and standards of living in a global age. Our global institutions have always had a sweeping ambition, set up not against a single enemy but against poverty, conflict, injustice and intolerance, and set up in the belief that, for peace to last, prosperity must be shared.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“Some say that in a time of difficulty we should look inwards and cut aid; that we have an excuse for walking by on the other side; and that, by our inaction, we tolerate famine — but in today’s world, there is no other side. Africa is not part of the problem, but an indisputable part of the solution. It is only by helping Africa to become a net exporter of food rather than a net importer that we can hope to achieve a long-term end to soaring food prices. Only by restarting and seeing the trade talks through can we help our economies benefit from the annual boost of $150 billion that would be achieved by removing the protectionist trade barriers and trade-distorting subsidies that currently cost developing countries the most — $15 billion a year in their agricultural incomes alone.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“Such high and volatile prices have a harmful impact on the global economy, and all countries surely have a shared interest in avoiding such dramatic swings in the price of scarce resources. We must now therefore consider whether the current international architecture can bring the more transparent and stable energy markets this global economy clearly needs. We must bring producers and consumers together, build common understanding and address the issues through meaningful and sustained dialogue. At the end of this year, I will be hosting a global energy summit in London, building on the momentum generated in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to agree on key areas for further action. It is only by acting together that we can make the most of the world’s scarce resources and harness the power of our greater interdependence for our common good.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“We need global action to deal with high commodity prices and a rising global population demanding more energy. Only by taking tough decisions on energy security and climate change and by bringing together a new global partnership of oil producers and oil consumers can we bring stability to global energy markets and secure sustainable energy supplies for the long term. We are committed to tackling the global challenge of climate change. Oil will of course continue to meet a large part of our global energy needs for some decades to come, but over the past year we have seen the price of oil rise to as high as $146 per barrel before falling again to $90 in the past month — a fall of nearly 40 per cent.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“The international institutions built in the wake of the Second World War have not kept pace with the changing global economy. We need national regulators to be cooperative, rules and principles to be consistent, and international movements of capital to be transparent. The current era has been one of global prosperity. It has also been an era of global turbulence, and while there has been irresponsibility, we must now say clearly that the age of irresponsibility must be ended. We must now build that new global financial order, founding it on transparency, not opacity; rewarding success, not excess; and responsibility, not impunity. That order must be global, not national. Global action cannot be limited to financial stability. We must also address another problem of globalization — the global scramble for resources.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“Thirdly, there must be responsibility. No member of senior management should be able to say he or she did not understand the risks they were running and walk away from his or her obligations. Fourthly, there must be integrity. Most people agree that companies should align reward with stability and long-term gain because what matters is hard work, 19 08-52272 effort and enterprise. We should align the advice of credit-rating agencies with the interests of the investors. Fifthly, just as banks are global and the flows of capital are global, so oversight can no longer just be national but must also include global supervision. That is why we want to work to support immediately the establishment of international colleges for each of the largest global financial institutions — 30 of them by the end of the year.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“Confidence in the future is also needed to build confidence today, and that confidence will be built by showing that what are global problems can be addressed by globally coordinated solutions. I believe there are five key principles behind that all nations should unite around as we examine the future of our financial system. The first principle is that of transparency. People must know what they are buying and selling, and they must know what they are dealing with and not fear what might be hidden on each other’s books. We must look at the rapid introduction of improved internationally acceptable accounting standards and disclosure. Secondly, there must be sound banking practice and more effective regulation that looks not just at solvency but at liquidity, at managing and pricing risks for bad times and for good times, together.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“First, we must do all that it takes to stabilize the still turbulent financial markets and, in the months ahead, we must work together to rebuild the world financial system around clear principles. In the short term, each country is taking action to deal with the fallout of the credit crunch, and the United States of America deserves support from the rest of the world as it seeks to agree on in detail what all parties agree on in principle. In Britain, we have taken decisive action to promote stability in our banking system, protecting depositors and introducing a temporary ban on short- selling. We have already injected billions into the market, making in excess of £100 billion available, and announced only last week that our special liquidity scheme will be extended until the end of January next year.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“I want to talk about how we can work together to tackle financial instability and the intense pressure now on our finite world resources. The immediate priority is to help people everywhere cope with these difficult times and to do so fairly. That is why, in Britain, we have acted to help those hit hardest, assisting people with the costs of gas and electricity, supporting homeowners and the housing market and helping people acquire the skills to do the new jobs of the twenty-first century. But if we have learned anything in the past few years about the world in which we are now living, it is that the world we share is more interconnected than ever before and that the solutions have to be similarly coordinated.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“In the next two decades, our world economy will double in size. That means double the opportunities and potential for more businesses, more jobs and more prosperity. Extraordinary promise and opportunity await, but there are also wholly new insecurities and pressures — global problems that will require global solutions. The twin shocks of a global credit crunch and soaring commodity prices lead straight to the front doors of every family in every country, with higher oil, gas and food prices, and higher costs for credit. But because it is a global financial crisis and a global shortage of food and resources, it will not be resolved simply by individual nations acting in isolation, although there is much that they can do themselves. It will be solved in the end by us acting together.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“It is humbling to stand before this great Assembly today. Events of recent weeks have proved beyond doubt that we are now in a new global age. Living through the first financial crisis and the first resources crisis of globalization, we are a world not simply in transition, but facing transformation, with change more far- reaching than anything we have seen in our lifetimes. The challenges, the opportunities for us and the risks that we now face come together at the global crossroads of the United Nations, providing the focus for debate and decision here in this General Assembly Hall. A predecessor of mine said that if one built the present only in the image of the past, one would miss out entirely on the challenges of the future. It is to those challenges of the future that I want to address my remarks today.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)