European Forum Alpbach: “Multilateralism – Our Foundation for Liberty and Security”

– As delivered –

Statement by H.E. Mrs. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President of the 73^rd Session of the UN General Assembly

24 August 2019

Good evening,

While I was walking to the stage I was thinking that I am in big trouble – what to say after everything we have heard this afternoon. Let me acknowledge first

Your Excellency, President Van der Bellen,

Your Excellency, Chancellor Bierlein,

Dr. Fischler, President of the European Forum,

Governor Platter,

my friend Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations

youth leaders,

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

It is truly an honour to participate in this prestigious symposium. I am deeply grateful to the President of Austria – for inviting me to beautiful Alpbach, and for his tireless work over decades on climate change and the environment. I think he is perhaps the better known youth representative, in fact you might be one of the youth leaders present today! It is really an honour to be among you.  

I would also like to express my warm appreciation to Chancellor Bierlein – the first female Chancellor of Austria, which is music to my ears. As you may know, I am only the fourth woman to serve as President of the General Assembly in the 73 years of its history, and – very proudly – the first Latinamerican woman. I am a very, very proud Ecuadorian woman.

Thank you all for the very warm welcome. This reflects Austria’s best traditions of alpine hospitality, as well as your longstanding commitment to multilateralism. And thank you to this Forum and the Forum organisers for this much needed “talk the talk”. We are often told, at the United Nations, that it is just about talking, that it is only a talk-shop. But I strongly believe that it is necessary to talk, and that we need to take informed decisions. We need to talk before we can act.

Today, I would like to offer some thoughts on the theme of “Liberty and Security” from a multilateral perspective. In fact, multilateralism provides the best foundation for liberty and security, considering that we live in an increasingly interconnected world.

The question is:  can we be or feel free in a place haunted by conflict or extreme poverty? The response is clear: there is a strong connection between peace, security and sustainable development, and the role of our multilateral system and the United Nations, is crucial in this equation.

Dear friends,

The founding of the United Nations in 1945 raised the hopes of a world tired of war for a new era of liberty, security and prosperity. The Charter of the UN is predicated on the inter-dependence among the three – so well encapsulated in the concept of “human security”, which Austria was instrumental in developing, and which now includes, of course, an environmental dimension.

And we have come a long way during the past seven decades. In 1945, almost a third of the world’s population lived in non-self governing territories. Since then, the UN has helped to bring about the independence of more than 80 countries. In 1945, only a small proportion of UN Member States afforded women equal voting rights. Today, almost all do, luckily.

In 1957, when Austria invited the International Atomic Energy Agency to set up its headquarters here, few would have believed that ten years later, we would have a non-proliferation treaty. Fewer still would have believed that today, the number of nuclear-armed states would still be single digits.  Or that we would have, thanks to the leadership of Austria and other countries, a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Today, thanks to our collective efforts, people across the world live longer, healthier, freer and more prosperous lives. We have mediators and peacekeepers who can help broker peace and protect civilians. We have humanitarian agencies that feed over 90 million people per day, support more than 70 million displaced persons, and supply vaccines to almost half the world’s children. And that is the United Nations.

But, as we all know, too many of us still endure violence and material shortages. A third of the global population does not have access to safe drinking water. One in two people worldwide lacks essential health services.

Even more troubling: the gains we have made are now at risk, as a confluence of crises – environmental, political, economic and social – is driving conflict and instability. The climate emergency alone is an existential one for humanity.

So how can we move forward? I believe there are four areas that we need to address:

The first, of course, is climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that we have just 11 years to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. This will require us to reach “peak carbon” next year.

According to the Climate Action Tracker, however, current pledges under the Paris Agreement put us on course for 2.4 to 3.8-degree rise – and a future, of course, of widespread poverty, water scarcity, hunger, displacement and conflict.

We urgently need to increase our ambition. We urgently need to unlock the benefits of climate-smart development – which the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate estimates could be as much as $26 trillion dollars in the next decade if we do it right. We need to use opportunities such as the September Climate Action Summit to focus on the most transformative, scale-able steps we can take immediately to tip the scale back in our favour.

The second, of course, is economic. The whole-sale transformation we need – in economic policy and governance – is challenging to pursue politically. There is no question, however, about the consequences if we fail to make our multilateral systems and institutions relevant for all.

As we seek the bold solutions we need to leave no one behind, we must do more to ensure that our international financial institutions create a better safety net and drive forward the transition to what we call the green economy of the global green new deal.

It is really not rocket science to understand that we need a productive global economy built around decent work for all; that encourages closing socio-economic gaps, within and across generations, nations and genders. And that we need public and private investment to decarbonize development and recover environmental sustainability.

The third area is the fraying of the social contract. Despite prolonged periods of growth, wealth has not trickled down. Inequality is deepening. It is sobering to think, for example, that just 26 people – 26 people! – own as much as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorer half of humanity.

Governments are less able to provide a credible guarantee to their citizens. Today, issues that were traditionally domestic – job creation, for instance – increasingly require global cooperation.

This has created opportunities for those who seek to attribute people’s daily struggles to multilateral institutions. They promise easy solutions that stand no chance of addressing the challenges we face. They peddle an insular vision of nationalism to score political points with some domestic constituencies.

But, as was already mentioned, national interests can be better pursued if we are also global players. This can go hand in hand.

We must do more to convince ordinary people that the multilateral system can deliver for them. That has been the challenge I have set for this session of the General Assembly: My theme has been to make the UN relevant for all.

And I firmly believe that the best way to achieve this is to realize the Sustainable Development Goals and to harness the opportunities that the transition to carbon zero will bring. This must be our aim for the crucial meetings that will take place during High-Level Week at the UN next month.

And my final point: the health of our multilateral system. I have sensed a crisis of confidence in governments and institutions in many places around the world. This happens when people are not able to see, touch and understand the gains of multilateral action, or the irreplaceable role of the United Nations.  Multilateralism may be a word difficult to pronounce, but easy to explain. It is common sense. For me as a Spanish speaker, every time I have to say “Multilateralism” I really have to concentrate. But it is common sense. It can be translated by greater international cooperation, shared responsibilities and collective action. But it is also respect for and compliance with international law and a predictable rules-based order. The agreements and commitments that we reach internationally should be calibrated towards social and economic stability and environmental sustainability and they have to be complied with.

We are seeing a rise in nationalist sentiment, in extremism, in attacks on international law – as the world grows more multipolar but also more polarized. Just when we need multilateralism more than ever, global cooperation is being questioned, even undermined in some quarters.

As we – as you – know only too well, these trends can lead to war. And this time, war could wipe us out – through nuclear weapons, but also by preventing action on the climate emergency or in eradicating poverty or countering terrorism.

States should foster a multilateral system built to protect the global commons, such as the atmosphere, the ocean, or cyberspace, and global goods, such as international peace and security. We do have here a collective, intergenerational responsibility.

Excellencies, distinguished guests,

The good news is that we have – in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – our blueprint for addressing these challenges. They represent what I call our “survival kit” for humanity.

What we need now is leadership. We do need leadership and we do need action. Informed action. As we celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the Vienna International Centre this month, I count on you to approach challenges, and to seize every opportunity, in the same spirit that led Austria to become the home of one of the UN’s four headquarters; in the same spirit that enabled this country to rebuild itself as a hub for multilateralism after the Second World War.

I have no doubt that multilateralism is the best foundation for liberty and security, and the only hope we have for the future.

Our world is on fire. Our Amazon is on fire –  and I do come from Amazonian country. Our world is literally on fire. We need to act!

And to close I would like to quote Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who said that “the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference”. We are here because we are not indifferent.

Thank you.