YouSaid · the spoken record

Jacinda Ardern

lines on the record: 59
first: 2019-09-24
most recent: 2022-09-24
sittings or episodes: 3
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

“We are facing many battles on many fronts. But there is cause for optimism, because for every new weapon we face, there is a new tool to overcome it. Every attempt to push the world into chaos is a collective conviction to bring us back to order. We have the means; we just need the collective will.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“The weapons may be different, but the goals of those who perpetuate them are often the same: to cause chaos and reduce the ability of others to defend themselves; to disband communities; and to collapse the collective strength of countries that work together. But we have an opportunity here to ensure that those particular weapons of war do not become an established part of warfare. Therefore, we once again come back to the primary tool we have: diplomacy, dialogue and working together on solutions that do not undermine human rights, but that enhance them. For those who have not sought out the Christchurch Call to Action, I ask that they consider it. As with so many of the challenges we face, we will only be as strong as those who do the least. In these times, I am acutely aware of how easy it is to feel disheartened.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“As leaders, we are rightly concerned that even the most light-touch approaches to disinformation could be misinterpreted as being hostile to the values of free speech we value so highly. But while I cannot tell you today what the answer is to that challenge, I can say with complete certainty that we cannot ignore it. To do so poses an equal threat to the norms we all value. After all, how do we successfully end a war if people are led to believe that the reason for its existence is not only legal, but noble? How do we tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists? How do we ensure the human rights of others are upheld, when they are subjected to hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology?”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“We have improved crisis reactions, stymieing the ability to live-stream attacks and have crisis protocols that kick in to prevent proliferation. We are also focused on prevention and understanding those interactions between online environments and the real world that can lead to radicalization. This week we launched an initiative alongside companies and non-profits to help improve research and understanding of how a person’s online experiences are curated by automated processes. That will also be important in understanding more about misinformation and disinformation online — a challenge that we, as leaders, must address. Sadly, I think it is easy to dismiss this problem as one in the margins. I can certainly understand the desire to leave it to someone else.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Surely we can start with violent extremism and terrorist content online. On 15 March 2019, New Zealand experienced a horrific terrorist attack on its Muslim community. More than 50 people were killed as they prayed. The attack was live-streamed on a popular social media platform in an effort to gain notoriety and to spread hate. At that time, the ability to thwart those goals was limited, and the chances of Government alone being able to resolve that gap was equally challenging. That is why, alongside President Emmanuel Macron of France, we created the Christchurch Call to Action. The Call to Action community has worked together to address terrorism and violent extremist content online. As that important work progresses, we have demonstrated the impact we can have by working together collaboratively.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“We never saw that as a threat to our individual liberties — rather, it was a preservation of them. The same must apply now as we take on those new challenges. In New Zealand, we deeply value our right to protest. Some of our major social progress has been brought about by hikoi or people power, including becoming the first country in the world to recognize women’s right to vote and movement on major indigenous and human rights issues, to name but a few. Upholding those values in a modern environment translates into protecting a free, secure and open Internet in order to realize all of the opportunities that it presents in the way we communicate, organize and gather. But that does not mean the absence of transparency, expectations or even rules, if we correctly identify what it is we are trying to prevent.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“As leaders, we have never treated the weapons of old in the same way as those that have emerged. That is understandable. After all, a bullet takes a life, and a bomb takes out a whole village, while a lie online or from a podium does not. But what if that lie, told repeatedly and across many platforms, prompts, inspires or motivates others to take up arms, threaten the security of others or turn a blind eye to atrocities, or worse, to become complicit in them? What then? This is no longer a hypothetical. The weapons of war have changed, they are upon us and they require the same level of action and activity that we put into the weapons of old. We recognized the threats that the old weapons created. We came together as communities to minimize those threats. We created international rules, norms and expectations.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Such progress and consensus was recently blocked by Russia and represented a backwards step in the efforts of nearly every country in the world to make some even limited progress on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. None of that will stop New Zealand’s advocacy. We will remain a strong and passionate advocate for efforts to address the weapons of old, but we will also be an advocate in addressing the weapons that are new. After all, the face of war has changed and, with it, the weapons used. The tools used to challenge the statehood of others are hidden and more complex. Traditional combat, espionage and the threat of nuclear weapons are now accompanied by cyberattacks, prolific disinformation and the manipulation of entire communities and societies.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“It takes one country to believe that their cause is nobler, their might stronger or their people more willing to be sacrificed. None of us can stand at this rostrum and turn a blind eye to the fact that there are already leaders among us who believe that. Nuclear weapons do not make us safer. There will be those who agree, but believe it is simply too hard to rid ourselves of nuclear weapons at this juncture. There is no question that nuclear disarmament is an enormous challenge, but if given the choice — and we are being given a choice — surely we would choose the challenge of disarmament over the consequences of a failed strategy of weapons-based deterrence. This is why we will continue to advocate for meaningful progress on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Our history of championing not just the non-proliferation but the prohibition of nuclear weapons is grounded in what we have witnessed, as well as what we have experienced. We are a nation that is both of the Pacific and within it. It was in our region that those weapons of war were tested. Those tests have left a mark on the people, lands and waters of our home. The only way to guarantee our people that they will be safe from the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons is for them not to exist. That is why New Zealand calls on all States that share that conviction to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Some will call such a position naive. Some believe that we are safer as a result of nuclear weapons. In New Zealand, we have never accepted the wisdom of mutually assured destruction.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“That is why New Zealand was pleased to champion the veto initiative. Not only does it provide an opportunity to scrutinize the actions of the permanent member who cast a veto, but the veto initiative also gives the whole United Nations membership a voice where the Security Council has been unable to act. But we continue to call for more than that. For the United Nations to maintain its relevancy and to ensure that it truly is the voice of the breadth of countries it represents, the veto must be abolished, and permanent members must exercise their responsibility for the benefit of international peace and security, rather than the pursuit of national interests. There are other battles that we continue to wage as a nation, including our call for a global response to the use of nuclear weapons.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“They need us, as a global community, to ask one simple question: “What if it were us?” Our ability to answer that question with any confidence in the fact that we have the tools as a global community to act swiftly and collectively has been severely undermined. In March, when we most needed the Security Council to act in the defence of international peace and security, it could not. It did not fulfil its mandate because of one permanent member who was willing to abuse its privileged position. That was wrong. We will not give up on the ability of our multilateral institutions to stand up against that illegal war or to take on the many challenges we face. Those institutions are the ballast we need, but it is a ballast that requires modernization fit for the tumultuous waters we all face.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“There is perhaps no greater example of that than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Let us all be clear: Russia’s war is illegal and immoral. It is a direct attack on the Charter of the United Nations and the international rules-based system and everything that this community should stand for. Putin’s suggestion that Russia could, at any point, deploy further weapons that it has at its disposal reveals the false narrative upon which they have based their invasion. What country that claims to be a liberator threatens to annihilate the very civilians it claims to liberate? The war is based on a lie. But I recognize that, for the people of Ukraine who have lost loved ones, their sense of peace and security and their livelihoods, these are all just words.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“It is why we have worked so hard within the Paris Agreement to see the action we need on climate change, while also doing our bit at home, including by putting a 1.5°C warming limit into law; increasing our nationally determined contribution to 50 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030; and quadrupling our climate finance commitment. Whether on climate, trade, health crises or seeking peaceful solutions to war and conflict, New Zealand has always been a believer in multilateral tools. We were among the founding members of the United Nations, as Governments of the day recognized that the perils of war would be avoided only through a greater sense of shared responsibility. The basis on which this institution was formed remains as relevant today as it was then. But without reform, we risk irrelevancy.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“The next pandemic will not be prevented by one country’s efforts, but by all of ours. Climate action will only ever be as successful as the least committed country, as they pull down the ambition of the collective. However, I am not suggesting that we rely on the goodwill of others to make progress. We need a dual strategy — one in which we push for collective effort but also use our multilateral tools to make progress. That is why, on pandemic preparedness, we support efforts to develop a new global health legal instrument, strengthened international health regulations and a strong and empowered World Health Organization. It is why we are such advocates of the World Trade Organization and its reform to ensure supply chains remain open and critical goods and services are not subjected to protectionism in times of need.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“It continues to affect our economies and, with that, the well-being of our people. It set us back in our fight against the crisis of climate change and progress on the Sustainable Development Goals while we looked to the health crisis that was right in front of us. While we enter a period now in which the crisis is subsiding, the lessons cannot. COVID-19 schooled us. It forced us to acknowledge how interconnected and therefore how reliant we are on one another. We move between one another’s countries with increasing ease. We trade our goods and services. When one link in our supply chain is affected, we all are. The lessons of COVID-19 are, in many ways, the same as the lessons of climate change. When crisis is upon us, we cannot and will not solve these issues on our own.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“E nga Mana, e nga Reo, Rau Rangatira ma kua huihui mai nei i tenei Whare Nui o te Ao. Nga mihi maioha ki a koutou katoa, mai i toku Whenua o Aotearoa. Tuia ki runga, Tuia ki raro, ka Rongo to po ka rongo te ao. No reira, tend koutou katoa. I greet you in te reo Maori, the language of the tangata whenua, or first people, of Aotearoa, New Zealand. I acknowledge the leaders who are here, gathered in person after a long and difficult period. As is tradition in my country, I also acknowledge those who have passed. Loss brings with it a chance for reflection. As leaders, between us, we each represent countries and communities who have lost much in the past few years through famine, severe weather, natural disasters and a pandemic. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic was devastating. It took millions of lives.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Tend koutou, tend koutou, tend tatou katoa.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“If there is any lesson we can draw from the events of the past 18 months, it is the need for more, and better, cooperation. And with the need for better cooperation, comes the need for responsive and adaptive global institutions, including the United Nations. I commend and thank the Secretary-General on his report and recommendations to advance Our Common Agenda. These provide us with a roadmap for a more inclusive and effective multilateralism. One that includes a voice for the needs of future generations and leaves no one behind. As leaders, we have the power to shape our shared institutions and to make them fit for purpose. We must not shy away from this task. I can think of no better way to reaffirm our kindness towards one another, our shared humanity, and our unity. I hope you will join us.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“New Zealand is committed to advancing Our Common Agenda, and sadly, as we have seen in recent times, an essential element of this is preparedness. No one can argue for instance that the global community as a whole was adequately prepared for a global pandemic. It is clear that we will face further global health risks, and we have no excuses for remaining unprepared. New Zealand strongly supports the ambitious and practical approach of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. We will not just passively support the Independent Panel’s recommendations. We will actively engage on work streams to develop a pandemic treaty, convention or other international instrument; to improve global surveillance, validation and early response; and importantly, to strengthen the World Health Organization.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“They apply equally to the collective challenges we face today, and if we are to resolve these in an enduring way, we must look beyond government. Inclusive multilateralism is one in which our common understandings are enriched by diverse perspectives. As governments, we owe it to ourselves to be open to the expertise and partnerships offered by stakeholders, whether they are from civil society, industry, or indigenous groups. I have seen in the progress we have made through the Christchurch Call to Action, what can be achieved when governments, industry, and civil society work together in a multistakeholder capacity to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online, and I am utterly committed to further efforts on this important work.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“To approach our shared challenges from a place of fear, hoping to protect narrowly defined interests by turning inwards. Or we can reaffirm our trust in cooperation, understanding that our greatest fears can only be tackled by concerted collective action. Our forebears were once at this fork in the road. They chose the path of trust. They founded the United Nations. It is times like these when we have the most to gain by reminding ourselves of what the Charter’s preamble says. It speaks to a concern for future generations. It speaks about universal observance of human rights, respect for international law, and living together in peace as good neighbours. It speaks about uniting our strength, and combining our efforts to accomplish our aims. These words of determination were in response to the devastation of war.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“Whatever our political or constitutional systems, no nation will ever be truly peaceful in the absence of these basic conditions, founded on the fundamental and equal rights of every person. And where peace fails, we must all do our part to strengthen and improve respect for the laws of armed conflict, and to enhance the protection of civilians. Preventing both the use of illegal weapons, and the illegal use of legal weapons, is essential, as is ensuring there is no impunity for any such use. This work is a shared responsibility, and one which we pursue alongside our tireless efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons and the spectre of a conflict that no one can recover from. All of these challenges we share might cause us to re-examine our response to being so interconnected. We have a choice.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“We are seeing this in Afghanistan and there are many more. As an international community we must rise to the challenge of meeting the growing humanitarian need. But we also have to intensify our efforts to prevent conflict and build peace. New Zealand looks forward to playing a part in this effort as we join the Peacebuilding Commission in 2022. As leaders, we have a responsibility to foster and sustain peace in our societies. We know what the necessary conditions are. Yes, this includes the absence of poverty, hunger, and material deprivation. But it is also something more. Peaceful societies are inclusive societies, where diversity is embraced and everyone has both the means and the opportunities to contribute to the fullness of their potential. Where women and girls are lifted up and encouraged to exercise their voice and their agency.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“For our part — this is an area where we are working hard, with a unique agreement between our food sector, government and Maori to reduce agricultural emissions through a pricing mechanism. We are determined to show the world what is possible. At the same time we must include making trade more open and inclusive. COVID-19 disrupted global supply chains, while at the same time it illustrated the importance of open trade to protecting the health of people and lifting them out of poverty and hunger. We must commit to ensuring the flow of essential goods and services, and reject any temptation to turn inwards and focus on protectionism. We know that poverty and inequality drive conflict and instability, and we are also seeing this, in heightened civil unrest and conflict. Humanitarian crises have worsened.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“New Zealand invests heavily in sustainable food production, and what we produce feeds many times our own population. But we have seen that at the global level, food systems are neither sustainable nor resilient. They suffer from, and contribute to, the overlapping impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss. Transformational change is needed to ensure that everyone has access to the nutrition they need. This week’s Food Systems Summit is an important step, and it must be the beginning of an ongoing effort. We will do our part in supporting these efforts, including on initiatives that acknowledge the leadership of indigenous peoples in food systems and increase global ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“New Zealand is committed to this, and I urge you to join us. As with biodiversity on land, ocean biodiversity is equally important. New Zealand looks forward to concluding the negotiations on an UN treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of high seas biodiversity. But as we turn our mind to the challenges we face globally, we must turn to the most important thing of all — he tangata, he tangata, he tangata — it is people, people, people. More than 120 million people have been pushed into extreme poverty as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Inequality within and between countries has deepened. These consequences were never inevitable, and there are steps we can take to reverse these trends and improve the lives of those impacted. Too many people go hungry every day.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“We depend on it for the air we breathe, and the economies we have built. Biodiversity loss threatens our well-being, our prosperity, and our health. It will both accelerate climate change, and make its impacts worse. This is a challenge that requires us to work across barriers and silos. For New Zealand’s part, we have adopted the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy 2020 — Te Mana o te Taiao — which will guide our actions domestically for the protection, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity. We simply cannot achieve the 2030 Agenda unless we unite with collective ambition to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. We have an opportunity to do this by adopting and implementing an ambitious and transformational post-2020 global biodiversity framework at the upcoming Conference of Parties.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“Pacific countries have also planned their economies and long-term development in reliance on the maritime zones and resources guaranteed to them under the Law of the Sea Convention. It is only right that as an international community, we work to ensure the maintenance of those zones and rights in the face of climate change-related sea- level rise. As a contribution to this objective, I was pleased to join my fellow Pacific Islands Forum Leaders in issuing the ‘Declaration on Preserving Maritime Zones in the Face of Climate Change-related Sea-Level Rise’, in August this year. Climate change is closely interlinked with another crisis of a planetary scale — that of global biodiversity loss. As much as we are all interconnected as nations, so too are we connected with nature and the services it provides.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“Lifting the ambition of our nationally determined contributions is vital, but there are also collective actions we need to take. This includes bringing an end to fossil fuel and other environmentally harmful subsidies. It includes pooling our resources and knowledge through the Global Research Alliance so that we can grow more food without growing emissions. It includes negotiating an agreement on climate change, trade and sustainability. New Zealand is actively pursuing all of these outcomes. We must collectively address the unjust and potentially destabilising consequences of climate change. For Small Island Developing States, one of the gravest consequences is sea-level rise. The ocean is central to the culture and livelihoods of the peoples of the Pacific.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“The climate crisis cannot be beaten through incrementalism. The science demands that we do so much more. New Zealand has made the 1.5°C limit the heart of our domestic climate change legislation. We have committed to a 2050 target and we are revising our Nationally Determined Contribution. As we mitigate, we must also adapt. This year New Zealand conducted its first national climate change risk assessment to tell us where to focus our effort, and within two years we will have a national adaptation plan. But we have already begun our journey. New Zealand has a programme to plant for instance, one billion trees by 2028. This will store carbon, but it will also support forest resilience, prevent erosion, improve biodiversity, and support our rural and indigenous communities.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“There is perhaps no better example of a global crisis that demands action than climate change. Climate change is one of the most pervasive crises of our time. From rising sea levels to shifting weather patterns, the impacts are global in scope, unprecedented in scale, and happening right now. Climate change touches all of our lives, but countries in the Pacific are some of the most affected, despite having contributed least to the problem. Pacific leaders view climate change as the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the region. Any global response that fails to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels is unacceptable. This is our goal, and our collective efforts must achieve it. The latest science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is stark.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“To adjust some of our fundamental settings to put us in a better position to respond to our shared challenges. We have heard so much about ‘building back better’. We must do better. Like the drafters of the Charter, we owe future generations our commitment to hand down a better world forged through cooperation. Fortunately for us, we already have a blueprint for such a world in the Sustainable Development Goals, and the 2030 Agenda. The 2030 Agenda recognises that as our shared challenges are interconnected, so too must be our responses. As we face a series of interlinked global crises that demand action, now is the time for us to recommit to the SDGs. COVID-19 cannot be an excuse for not achieving the SDGs. In fact, it’s a further reason why we must.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“New Zealand continues to work in WTO and APEC to support a waiver of intellectual property protections for vaccines and other measures to increase availability. Without equitable access for all, we risk further variants developing which could undermine or undo our progress. At the same time that the direct impacts of COVID-19 have brought immeasurable pain to many across the world, it has also exacerbated and further complicated other existing global challenges. We know what these challenges are. We articulated them as areas of action in the UN Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Declaration. The pandemic has been the ultimate disrupter. It has changed our realities, and given us cause to pause and reflect. In the disruption is an opportunity for us to reset.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“One need only read the preamble to see them reflected back at us. No community, nation, or region acting alone can address COVID-19. It is a complex, global problem that requires a global solution. Equitable access to safe and effective vaccines for everyone is essential to our response and recovery. New Zealand is working with others, especially Australia, to support full vaccine coverage for Pacific island countries. And the COVAX Facility is doing essential work distributing vaccines worldwide. But more must be done to support this effort. New Zealand is proud to have been amongst the first countries to donate doses to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment in addition to our financial support.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“We have placed our trust in the actions of neighbours and strangers — to wear masks, to distance, to get vaccinated and support others to do so, and we live collectively with the consequences. It has been a privilege for me as a leader, to witness the practical application of New Zealanders’ values to these challenges. Values like manaakitanga and whanaungatanga, which in the Maori language mean kindness, and a shared sense of humanity and connectedness. Values like kotahitanga, or a shared aspiration and unity towards a common goal. These values have seen New Zealanders take care of one another, and work together to limit the transmission of COVID-19 in our communities. Now these values are not unique to New Zealand. They are universal. They underpin the Charter of the United Nations.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“In some ways, we now feel that remoteness more keenly. The vast ocean surrounding our islands have taken on an even greater significance in a time when our border controls are our first line of defence against a highly contagious, global virus. Despite this physical distancing, the pandemic has demonstrated more starkly than ever just how closely connected we all are. We live in a world where domestic decisions made half a world away, are as significant to us as those made by our nearest neighbours. In many ways, COVID-19 is an illustration of global transboundary problems at a local level. Here is an invisible threat, which no one is safe from, and the very thing keeping us safe — is each other.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“E nga Mana, e nga Reo, Rau Rangatira ma o tenei Whare Nui o te Ao Prestigious people, Speakers of note, Chiefs one and all of this General Assembly Nga mihi mahana ki o koutou katoa, mai i toku Whenua o Aotearoa Warm greetings to you all from my home country of New Zealand No reira, tend koutou katoa. Greetings to you all. Mr President, Mr Secretary-General, Friends, I greet you in te reo Maori, the language of the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. As I deliver this address to the General Assembly from here in New Zealand, it strikes me that even when global events threaten to disconnect and divide us, a shared instinct to connect with one another, still prevails. I have often described New Zealand as being remote, but connected. The COVID-19 pandemic has made both parts of this statement truer than ever.”
2021-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 76 (2021)
“But he also asks the question: What if we change what “us” means? What if, instead of forming our tribes based on fierce nationalism or self-interest, we seek to form them based on concepts that can and should be universal? What if we no longer see ourselves based on what we look like, what religion we practice or where we live, but by what we value — humanity, kindness, an innate sense of connection to each other and a belief that we are guardians, not just of our home and our planet, but of one another? We are borderless, but we are connected. We are inherently different, but we have more that we share. We may feel afraid, but as leaders we have the keys to create a sense of security and a sense of hope. We just need to choose. Tatou tatou. No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“There may have been a time when being unified under common challenges was an easier concept than it is today, but, undeniably, we are living at a time when our greater reliance on one another has collided with a period of greater tribalism. It would be wrong to assume that this is a new phenomenon. Research has, in fact, shown that humans are so inclined to form natural tribes, that if one were to put a completely unconnected diverse group of people into a room and flip a coin for each person, two groups will automatically form a suspicion of one another based on nothing more than heads versus tails. Scientist and writer Robert Sapolsky recently reminded us that humans organize. Whether according to class, race, country or coin-flipping, there has always been a tendency to form “us” versus “other”.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“It is both the most fair and economically consistent thing to do. My question is — will our fellow members of the General Assembly join us? That brings us back to the concept that challenges our modern political environment. We are being asked to make decisions that are local, but with consequences that are global. Yet that is what climate change requires us to do and it is what, historically, our commitment to the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, asks us to do. It is what standing up against acts of violence and discrimination asks us to do. Our globalized, borderless world asks us to be guardians not just for our people, but for all people.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“New Zealand will once more be calling on countries to support an end to fossil fuel subsidies at the Twelfth World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference, to be held in June 2020. This week, New Zealand and a group of like-minded countries will also announce the launch of a new initiative that applies trade levers to climate-related goods, services and technologies. It is time for trade deals to become a force for good on climate action. They need to stop allowing perverse subsidies that incentivize pollution and finally remove tariffs on green technology. Fossil fuel companies should no longer reap the benefits of subsidies that many, like our farmers and others, have been asked to give up. Without the billions in subsidies that go into the fossil fuel industry, green energy can compete on an even footing.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“New Zealand will never produce all of the food that the world needs, no matter how many sheep the world may think we have, but we can produce the ideas and the technology that the world needs for everyone to farm and to grow in the most sustainable way possible. New Zealand is determined to do good and to be good for the world. That is why we are also focused on tackling the billions of dollars that countries spend annually on fossil fuel subsidies — billions that could instead be spent on transitioning to new forms of clean energy generation. Despite commitments to phase out such subsidies by groups like the Group of 20 and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, we are still struggling to see concrete action. It is time to do things differently.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“In fact, our farming leaders have made their own commitment to cutting emissions from food production. Over the next five years, we will collaborate with farmers to build systems in New Zealand that every farmer will be able to use to measure, manage and reduce their own farm’s emissions. We are doing that because we are unique. Agriculture makes up nearly half of our greenhouse gas emissions, setting us apart from our counterparts in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, but we will not stay out there on our own for long. When other countries cut pollution from traditional sectors, like energy and transport, their profiles will start to look more and more like ours does today.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“We have continued towards our goal of planting 1 billion trees. We have created a $100 million green investment fund. We have stopped issuing new offshore oil and gas exploration permits. We are creating a plan to achieve 100 per cent renewable electricity generation and to incentivize low emission transport options. We are also supporting our Pacific neighbours with projects to increase solar power, reduce the use of diesel generators, protect coastlines and stop seawater from entering water supplies. Some answers to the climate challenge are easier than others. The vast bulk of our greenhouse gas emissions, for instance, do not come from transport, energy generation or waste but from one of the things that we pride ourselves on — our food production for the world. We know that requires us to adapt.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“They have never met the world leaders represented here, nor have those leaders met them, but I can tell everyone that their expectations of all of us are high. Meeting those expectations will require us to use every policy lever available and, following the example of the Christchurch Call, we need to work with partners inside and outside Government to make change. In New Zealand, we have plenty of work to do. We may produce only 0.17 per cent of global emissions, but like so many others, our gross emissions have been rising steadily since the 1990s. That is why we have coupled ambition with action. Over the past two years since my Government took office, New Zealand has produced our own zero carbon legislation, which puts our domestic economic transformation in line with the objective of a 1.5°C limit in global temperature increase.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“In his words: “To save the Pacific is to save the whole planet.” In fact, 7 of the 15 most climate-affected nations in the world sit within the Pacific region, including places like Tuvalu, with a population of just over 11,000 people, which barely contributes to global emissions but is paying the price for our collective inaction; atolls so low-lying that in weather events the water on either side of them can flow together and join at the narrowest points, engulfed by the sea; or Tokelau, a beautiful set of three atolls that can only be accessed by boat, where the children speak knowledgeably about climate change, knowing that unlike all the challenges their self-reliant forbears have ever faced, this one is completely and utterly in other people’s hands.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“We are succeeding because we are working together and for that unprecedented and powerful act of unity, New Zealand says, “thank you”. The centrality of technology in our lives is not the only example of our increasing interconnection and reliance on one another if we are to respond to the challenges we face. There is perhaps no better example of our absolute interdependence than the issue of climate change. When the Secretary-General visited the Pacific region this year, he saw at first-hand how countries that have produced the fewest greenhouse gas emissions are now facing the most catastrophic effects.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“Two months after the attacks, leaders gathered in Paris for the Christchurch Call to Action Summit, bringing together companies, countries and civil society, and committing to a range of actions to reduce the harm such content can cause. In so doing, we have kept our focus on the deeper aim we all aspire to — technology that unleashes human potential, not the worst in us. Yesterday, I met with Call supporters to check on our collective progress. We announced that a key tech industry institution will be reshaped to give effect to those commitments and we launched a crisis response protocol to make sure that we can respond to such events, should they happen in the future. Neither New Zealand nor any other country could make those changes on their own, and neither could the technology companies.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“In the first 24 hours after the attack, Facebook took down 1.5 million copies of the live stream video. YouTube saw a copy of the video uploaded, at times, as fast as once every second during the same period. The alleged terrorist used social media as a weapon. The attack demonstrated how the Internet — a global commons with extraordinary power to do good — can be perverted and used as a tool for terrorists. What happened in Christchurch, as well as being a profound tragedy, is also a complex and ongoing problem for the world. It is a problem we felt a sense of responsibility to do something about, so we sought to collaborate with the technology companies that are so integral to the solution.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)