Statement delivered by the Minister for Environment, Land and Sea Protection, Sergio Costa, at the High-level Meeting on the Protection of the Global Climate for Present and Future Generations of Humankind —
Madam President,
Secretary-General,
Honorable Prime Ministers, Ministers and
Government Representatives,
Our response to the threats of climate change and action for sustainable development calls for a far-reaching vision that can offer solutions to current and future generations on the basis of effective policies and measures to be adopted starting now.
Secretary-General Guterres recently defined Climate Change as the greatest systemic risk for the global economy and for the near future, and we fully agree.
At the COP24 in Poland last December, we have put together successfully a set of rules for the implementation of the Paris Agreement that are common, sufficiently robust, balanced and calibrated according to the capacity and national commitments of each country, in keeping with what we had set out to achieve. It is now, in our opinion, an absolute priority to make every effort to ensure the raise of the ambition needed to follow the indications offered by science.
The challenge is to strengthen our capacity to work together for common objectives, bringing together the initiatives in the field under a perspective of sustainability. The success of Agenda 2030 and the implementation of the Paris Agreement will depend precisely on this capacity to govern the complexities in an integrated, balanced and coherent way within our existing and planned national programs.
Italy is working in this direction to give universality to its work in a dual function of responsibility and coherence of national policies promoting sustainability and external commitments, both in terms of development cooperation and of support for common global initiatives.
Our ambition at home reflects, legitimately and convincingly, our proposing ambition and leadership at the international level.
It is with this spirit that Italy, in cooperation with FAO and UNDP recently inaugurated the Africa Center for Climate and Sustainable Development, a platform for creating synergies between the various actions on the climate and sustainability of the African Continent. With the Center, we have supported the work of the Secretary-General. In the same perspective, we are planning the launch of similar initiatives in other geographical areas of the planet.
It is always with this spirit that we are finalizing many partnership agreements with African Countries and Small Islands of the Pacific that see our support in the protection of water, renewable energy, resilience and adaptation, sustainable mobility and capacity building.
And it is, once again, in this spirit that beyond the passion, the will and determination that we believe we are best poised to host the COP26 in 2020.
Our wish for this fundamental appointment for the future of the planet is to offer Italy’s credibility and unique capacity for dialogue with and listening to the entire world to reach concrete results in protecting the global climate for current and future generations.
The time to act is now! And that has to concretize here at the home of United Nations, home of inclusion, of dialogue and discussion. If we not decide now and here, everyone will lose and we will lose everything.
Thank you.
