YouSaid · the spoken record

President Tong

lines on the record: 8
first: 2015-07-30
most recent: 2015-07-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: un-security-council

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

“It is our moral obligation to ensure that the future of our children, our grandchildren and their children is safe and secure. For their sake, we must us do the right thing as a matter of urgency. Let me conclude by sharing our very traditional Kiribati blessings of Td Mauri, Tc? Raoi, ao Td Tabomoa.”
2015-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7499 (2015) · source
“However, we all as global leaders must provide the needed leadership to do something now and to ensure that this meeting of the Security Council can deliver, be decisive and agree on a set of actions that will provide some guarantees of future security to all. We owe our children, our grandchildren and their children more than that. We need action that can guarantee that no one will be left behind and, most importantly, urgent action to address the security and existential challenges from climate change for the most vulnerable peoples in front-line States. The sad reality is that we cannot do this alone; hence our appeal today to the Council and, of course, to the rest of the global community. For as responsible global citizens of this planet, which we share as a home, it is our moral obligation to ensure its preservation.”
2015-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7499 (2015) · source
“The quiet onslaught of climate change lulls us into a false sense of security - into the belief that the cost of addressing it now is far too high and can be deferred to the next generation. This makes it even more deadly and dangerous as a security challenge that should not be ignored or treated with complacency. We have all experienced to some extent the severity and frequency of changing weather patterns and we can all understand that when - not if - these climate change-related disasters grow more frequent, the entire global community will suffer from increasing instability and increasing conflicts.”
2015-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7499 (2015) · source
“Can we as leaders return today to our people and be confident enough to say: yes, your existence and your lives are important and we, your leaders of the global community, have formulated options to ensure that no matter how high the sea rises and no matter how severe the storms get, there are credible technical solutions to raise your islands and your homes, and the necessary resources are available to ensure that all will be in place before it is too late. For those of us in Kiribati and other countries on the front line of climate change, the impacts began happening yesterday - last year. For us, any incremental rise in sea level threatens our very existence and our very livelihoods. Time is ofthe essence, and the urgency of climate change as a global security threat cannot be stressed enough.”
2015-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7499 (2015) · source
“It is evidence that we are nearing the point of no return, and yet we continue to procrastinate and to remain hesitant, willing and hoping our neighbours will take the first step, rather than taking the crucial first step ourselves that will set the tone for the global community to follow. We have come all this distance, at considerable cost, to attend this event because for us it is of vital importance. Our people are asking the question: What is it that we can expect to come out of this Security Council event?”
2015-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7499 (2015) · source
“Ironically and regrettably, it is also those with the least capacity and the least capability who are bearing the full brunt and impact of a security challenge that has the capacity to wreak extensive damage - a security challenge that has the capacity to wipe out whole nations and whole cultures and indeed wipe out life as we know it today on this planet. The science forthcoming from the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and elsewhere, together with our individual experiences in our own countries and events taking place in different regions as we speak today, provide more than ample evidence that something is terribly wrong.”
2015-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7499 (2015) · source
“The initiative to hold this open debate of the Security Council is therefore particularly welcome. It is also encouraging to note the growing momentum in the level of global acknowledgement of the issue of climate change. This is an issue borne from the actions of the whole of humankind, and yet remains lacking in effective global leadership and global accountability, and remains peripheral in the considerations of those with the capacity and capability to address and mitigate the relentless advance of climate change impacts.”
2015-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7499 (2015) · source
“President Tong: Let me begin by thanking you, Sir, for this opportunity to address the Security Council at this open debate. Let me also take this opportunity to thank the Prime Ministers of Samoa and Jamaica, together with the Minister of Finance of Seychelles, for their very informative statements early in this meeting. I believe that as a global community, we have gone well past debating what should and should not be considered global security challenges, and what are and are not immediate threats to global security and survival. As Pacific island leaders, through the Majuro Declaration adopted in the Republic of the Marshall Islands in 2013, we declared climate change to be a security threat to Pacific island nations and even sought to bring the matter to the attention of the Council for consideration.”
2015-07-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7499 (2015) · source