YouSaid · the spoken record

Satyendra Prasad

lines on the record
22
first
2020-07-24
most recent
2021-02-23
sittings or episodes
2
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

  1. “One needs only to reach out to the United Nations country teams in the countries that have been continuously in mission mode for nearly two months, assessing, healing and consoling one community after another as they try to look with hope to a better future from the ruins of everything that they have had for years and decades. That is why I said that this is the most important Security Council debate of our time. We expect a Security Council response that is befitting of the times and that gives hope to countries and communities across the world, where peace and security are now so fundamentally and relentlessly threatened by the climate crisis.”

    2021-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/198 (2021) · source

  2. “Fiji welcomes the Secretary-General’s reporting on security aspects of climate stress. Fiji joins its colleagues this morning in seeking to mainstream the security aspects of climate stress in all peace operations. Fiji joins Member States in seeking a unified United Nations response to mainstreaming peace and security perspectives in all development investments in highly climate-vulnerable countries. Fiji joins colleagues in seeking a substantial increase in the depth of reporting to the Security Council and all the other organs of the peace and security consequences of climate change. For many countries, the peace and security consequences of climate stress may be considerations for the near future. For Fiji and the small island States of the Pacific, they are considerations for today.”

    2021-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/198 (2021) · source

  3. “The Security Council needs access to a deeper understanding of how informal, and often criminal, networks are beginning to operate in that space because State practice and international law are failing climate-stressed communities that need to relocate. Some States ask: why the Security Council? Why must that be an issue for the Security Council? The answer is self-evident. In all its aspects, climate stress in small island States of the Pacific has moved from being a threat multiplier to a peace and security challenge. That is why this Security Council debate is so important. I will also add that this debate is fundamental to the future of the Security Council and to the United Nations system as a whole.We welcomed progress on the climate security mechanism.”

    2021-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/198 (2021) · source

  4. “The relocation of coastal communities adds pressure on urban areas and regions. The relocation of communities is always at the expense of the land and other rights locked in traditional customary practices. The relocation of whole communities within the country and that of larger populations from other countries stare us in the face in the Pacific. Fiji has provided opportunities to Kiribati and Tuvalu, its neighbours, to relocate to Fiji, should that they wish to do so. That commitment stands. Climate change-induced migration has become a necessary and legitimate reason for inter-State relocation. Such relocation must always be done with care.”

    2021-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/198 (2021) · source

  5. “More frequent disasters mean that the blue economy infrastructure of wharves, jetties, airstrips, boats and aquaculture investments are destroyed more frequently and need to be rebuilt more frequently. The relocation of coastal communities presents the most startling of all challenges. In the past two weeks alone, elders of two villages on the island of Vanua Levu at the epicentre of the recent cyclones have asked Fiji’s Prime Minister to relocate them. Cogea and Nabavatu villages will be relocated. How many more villages across Fiji and across the Pacific need to be relocated through no fault of theirs? In addition to the burden of recovery from COVID-19 and the climate catastrophes, those countries must bear the cost of that relocation largely alone. Something must give.”

    2021-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/198 (2021) · source

  6. “More frequently, with greater certainty and greater fury, climate stress and the climate crisis are impacting the stability of countries. Equally, climate stress is fuelling growing pressure on security and peace between countries. Secretary-General Guterres commented that, while we tackle COVID-19, we cannot postpone climate action because the climate crisis is not on hold. Fiji and the Pacific Islands are at the forefront of the climate crisis. They live and experience the impacts, day in and day out. There is growing pressure on the blue economy from the warming oceans, which is causing fish stocks to migrate to cooler waters, damaging our subsistence and harming our economy.”

    2021-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/198 (2021) · source

  7. “It has brought to United Nations peace operations years of accumulated expertise and insights into how the climate crisis fuels instability and how it generates conflicts and fuels tensions. Those are important skills to bring to United Nations peace operations. The Secretary-General has briefed the Security Council that a majority of United Nations peace operations are already located in regions facing severe climate stress. That is not coincidental; it is consequential. In all those cases, a clear result of climate stress, such as water scarcity and severe environmental degradation, are fuelling conflicts. In each of those cases, climate stress is making efforts to sustain peace more difficult. The Security Council has been charged with the maintenance of peace in relations among countries.”

    2021-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/198 (2021) · source

  8. “It most certainly cannot be sustained during a year in which the country also has to face the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. While that is the case in Fiji, the same is true for so many small island States. That is why we small island States are well represented at the Security Council debate this morning. The growing insecurity arising from the relentless assault of the climate crisis — from its catastrophic impacts to its slow onset impacts, such as longer periods of droughts and sea-level rise — demands the attention of the Security Council in a wholly new way.S/2021/198 Fiji’s has proudly contributed to United Nations peacekeeping for more than 40 years.”

    2021-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/198 (2021) · source

  9. “That would indeed be correct. While the Fijian Government is working with the United Nations and its development partners in providing relief to the communities harmed by Tropical Cyclone Ana, they are also responding to communities and families recovering from the monster category 5 Tropical Cyclone Yasa, which struck the Fijian Islands only a month earlier. All communities and families were impacted by that cyclone. That is slightly less normal. While the Fijian Government is working with its development partners on recovery from Tropical Cyclones Ana and Yasa, it is at the very same time working to support communities that were impacted by monster Tropical Cyclone Harold, which struck Fiji earlier in the year. That surely cannot be normal. Such devastation surely cannot be sustained year in and year out by any country.”

    2021-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/198 (2021) · source

  10. “Each time that happens, it is not the Security Council alone but the whole of the United Nations system that bears some responsibility. The security impacts and consequences of climate crisis on small island developing States across the blue Pacific are growing. They are growing dangerously, and they demand a proportionate urgency in the engagement by the Security Council. As I address the Security Council today, the Fijian Government, its disaster response agencies and its navy and military are working hand in hand with the United Nations, repairing homes, rebuilding livelihoods and restoring services to communities across the Fijian islands that are recovering from Tropical Cyclone Ana, which struck Fiji only two weeks ago. One may say that is normal for a country located in the South Pacific during its cyclone season.”

    2021-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/198 (2021) · source

  11. “We associate ourselves with the statements delivered by the Honourable Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda and Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (annex 19); the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany on behalf of the Group of Friends on Climate and Security (annex 20); and the Permanent Representative of Tuvalu as Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum and the Pacific Small Island Developing States (annex 61). This is the Security Council debate of our time. No one should be more conscious and aware of how speedily and how relentlessly climate crisis is having an impact on peace and conflicts across the world. The threat or multiple threats arising from the climate crisis are generating new conflicts globally and they are making existing conflicts more intractable.”

    2021-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/198 (2021) · source

  12. “I congratulate you, Mr. Minister, and the Government of the United Kingdom on assuming the presidency of the Security Council. I thank you for convening the most important Security Council debate of our time, that is, on the growing and expanding threats to international peace and security arising from the climate crisis. On behalf of the Prime Minister of Fiji, the Honourable Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, I am pleased to offer remarks to the Security Council this morning.”

    2021-02-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/198 (2021) · source

  13. “Finally, I call on the United Nations to convene, at the earliest possible date, a summit of world leaders on the international peace and security consequences of climate crisis and on the United Nations response. The summit should seek the views of leaders on whether the existing international architecture is capable of responding to this challenge of our times.”

    2020-07-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/751 (2020) · source

  14. “Secondly, I fully support the call by several Member States this morning that climate and security should be featured as a core and recurring agenda item for the United Nations. Thirdly, I urge the Security Council to work with all United Nations organs and the United Nations system as a whole to ensure that the peace and security dimensions of climate change are systematically mainstreamed in the work across United Nations agencies, programmes and funds as well as peace operations. Fourthly, as a long-standing troop-contributing country, Fiji urges the Security Council to work with States Members of the United Nations to prepare and better position our peace operations to operate in increasingly complex and climate- stressed peacekeeping contexts.”

    2020-07-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/751 (2020) · source

  15. “We do not have the luxury of engaging in endless debates over the same regional conflicts that have frustrated this organ for decades while rising seas slowly swallow up national territories today. The Council’s core responsibility — the maintenance of international peace and security — is fundamental and will be fulfilled through sustained and accelerated progress in implementing the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The Paris Agreement is the single most important weapon that we have if we are to win this war of our generation. You, Mr. President, have requested guidance in shaping the work of the Security Council. To that end, let me make five proposals. First, I wholeheartedly support the call by Pacific island leaders for the appointment of a United Nations special envoy for climate and security.”

    2020-07-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/751 (2020) · source

  16. “We are on a permanent war footing while we relocate health facilities and reinforce or rebuild other health facilities to make them more resilient. Fourthly, the Pacific islands’ energy, water, airports, wharves, roads and bridges — and all physical infrastructure needed to maintain and extend essential services — are all being threatened by the climate crisis. It is my hope that the Governments of the United States of America, China, Russia, France and the United Kingdom — the permanent members of the Security Council — will hear our call. This is the war of our times. We do not have the luxury of choosing to ignore some crises while trying to confront others.”

    2020-07-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/751 (2020) · source

  17. “It is an existential threat that has a concentrated and unequal impact on all aspects of our lives, including our security. First is the human dimension of the crisis. Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and several other countries are already relocating communities away from their homelands, away from their fishing grounds, away from the graves of their ancestors and away from their traditional lands. Secondly, more and more of our arable lands and groundwater are being lost through salination and sea-level rise. Thirdly, as most of the world grapples with the COVID-19 crisis, the Pacific islands are tackling multiple health threats and managing more frequent and prolonged outbreaks of dengue, leptospirosis and other diseases, in addition to COVID-19.”

    2020-07-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/751 (2020) · source

  18. “Earlier this year, Vanuatu was hit by super-cyclone Harold, and saw 30 per cent of its economy swept away. Vanuatu now faces a near-total collapse of the mainstay of its economy, namely, tourism, because of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Vanuatu and Fiji are both contributing members of the global community, and we want to see solutions brought to trouble spots in the world. We appreciate the work of the Security Council. But we say: do not put climate on the back burner. We have the tools and the frameworks we need to win the fight against climate change. The world community must now ask if we have the institutional architecture and the will. Fiji and the Pacific islands speak out in the debate on climate and security because it affects us deeply and immediately.”

    2020-07-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/751 (2020) · source

  19. “The loss to Pacific islands from this one situation alone is in excess of $1 billion per year — almost twice as much as the total annual official development assistance to the Pacific States. It is a devastating blow to the small economies of these island States and to their stability, and the threat is growing. While the Security Council expends much of its energy on long-standing geopolitical frustrations, we have a climate crisis that is persistently wreaking havoc across the Pacific. Try telling my colleague the Honourable Bob Loughman, Prime Minister of Vanuatu, that the Security Council will respond to the climate crisis at a slow pace. His nation is midway through a long recovery from super-cyclone Pam, which wiped out 70 per cent of Vanuatu’s economy in 2015.”

    2020-07-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/751 (2020) · source

  20. “It undermines our societal cohesion, affects food security and creates deep anxiety in our populations. It also threatens the sense of peace and security that we traditionally feel in our part of the world. Fiji and all Pacific island leaders have said to the global community that rising sea levels must not have consequences for the maritime boundaries of our ocean States. We did not cause the sea-level rise, and sea-level rise must not threaten, erode or limit our national sovereignty. As large ocean States, we depend on our oceans for our livelihoods. Yet warming oceans have triggered a large-scale displacement of migratory fish stocks from our exclusive economic zones into the cooler waters of the eastern Pacific.”

    2020-07-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/751 (2020) · source

  21. “Ask any Fijian peacekeeper on the ground across the world, and he or she will say that water scarcity, droughts, cyclones, desertification and other natural phenomena that are directly related to climate change compound conflicts. They make competition for resources more intense. They help to radicalize disillusioned young people and increase the appeal and spread of radical ideologies. They make conflicts more protracted and political solutions more difficult to achieve. Fiji’s views are consistent. The climate crisis threatens peace and stability within States and is increasingly fuelling insecurity between and among States. For Pacific small island developing States, climate change is an existential crisis. Its impacts are deep and far-reaching for all our economies.”

    2020-07-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/751 (2020) · source

  22. “I wish to thank the German presidency of the Security Council for inviting me to speak on the great challenge of our times: the very real impact the climate crisis has on security and the global response that is needed. Accordingly, I submit the following statement on behalf of Mr. Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, Prime Minister and Minister for iTaukei Affairs and Sugar Industry of Fiji. Fiji follows the work of the Security Council most closely. We directly participate in or support peace operations across the world. Our brave peacekeepers have learned from our engagements in many peace operations that the United Nations is devoting more and more effort and funds to peace operations in regions that face severe climate-induced pressures. This is not a coincidence.”

    2020-07-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/751 (2020) · source