Csaba Kőrösi, President of the 77th session of the General Assembly 

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Fourth Global Conference on Strengthening Synergies between the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

16 July 2023  

(As delivered) 

  

Honourable Ministers,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It was all music to my ears what I heard from my good friends, Li Junhua and Simon Stiell.

Welcome to all of you in New York.

Good morning, America. Good afternoon, Europe. Good evening, Asia. And good late evening, Australia.

Indeed, as we have heard, we are facing an emergency – probably the greatest one humanity has seen in the last seven decades.

We know that climate change is one of the major threats to the stability of our societies and civilization.

Today, every high school student can tell you that the Agenda 2030, with SDG 13 in it, and the Paris Agreement are principle tools to save the planet and people from quick regress, to support development in general, including the commitment to leaving no one behind.

But do you know how SDG13 was born?

During the open working group negotiations, which were to produce the SDGs, us, the co-chairs, were pushed back by a significant number of Member States in order not to have a climate goal as part of the integrated vision of sustainability transformation.

For your information, one of the unwritten, tough, basic rules of the chairs of negotiations is:  Never go against membership.

So, if you take a chance, you have to calculate carefully, because repeated rejections undermine the much-needed authority for your leadership.

We got rejections three times.

One evening after the third rejection, very much depressed, I went home.

And I was asked by my daughter, Lily – 16 at that time – what happened, Dad?

I told her, you know, Lily, I think at the end of the day, we are going to have the SDGs.

But Member States are unwilling to include climate change into the set of key Goals.

So, we might be offering a vision of transformation to the world, but remaining tight lipped on climate change.

So, Lily, 16 at that time, with the language of her age group, very open, told me:

Dad, go back to those people and tell them they must be crazy.

They do not have the right to play with our future.

Tell them that if they do not understand that, they should better go home, because we would not listen to them.

That’s a big package.

But, the next morning I went, opened the negotiations. A bit toned down, but I delivered the message.

You can expect what was the reaction.

First, a shocking silence.

Then, applause started.

By the afternoon, we had SDG 13 as we have it today.

Why did I tell you this story?

The Agenda 2030, the Paris Agreement, the Addis Ababa protocol for financing sustainable development, the Sendai Framework, the Montreal Protocol on Biodiversity and now, the BBNJ Agreement on marine biodiversity, are a set of closely interlinked goals forming the backbone of the transformation we need.

The transformation that offers chances for human civilization to survive – and some basic conditions to prosper.

Their implementation must be as integrated as the challenges are interlocking.

24 hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle grasped the essence of synergies when he declared that “The whole is often greater than the sum of its parts.”

To use the language of science, you can speed up action and increase its impact when you pursue synergistic approaches.

Political decision makers have just started listening to the climate science community about our options, timeframes and expectable impacts of our actions, or inaction.

But, listening and doing are still not necessarily the same.

We should align and integrate what we have learned in our thinking, policies, regulations and investments.

Let me offer you an example of how integrated system analysis can produce integrated results and indicate the most cost efficient and impactful action in addressing climate and water crisis.

During this session, the Water Conference in March provided many valuable insights, including the inherent need to integrate water and climate policies.

If 80 per cent of the effects of climate change is felt through the ominous breaks and mutations of the water cycle, we cannot deal with these two separately.

That would be a luxury we cannot afford anymore.

To disregard the obvious synergies is a waste of time and money.

The pledge to integrate these two policies was among the main takeaways of the Water Conference.

As a concrete step of this integration, the participants also confirmed their resolve to start a global water information system, to help Member States to get prepared for the quality and quantity of water they could count on under the conditions of accelerating climate change.

This is one of the gamechangers in the race against time.

Similar work will have to be done in the fields of climate, food, energy, water – and the climate and health axis.

Is it time to deal with synergistic calculations.

To achieve the transformation we need, I strongly believe in bringing a scientific approach to our decision shaping processes.

We can do this by breaking down the fences that separate policy makers and managers from the scientific community, as we had the opportunity to discuss it yesterday.

Engaging science will make it possible to transform our cultures of production and consumption, extraction and preservation.

It will help us to change how we manage our resources, how we monitor our progress and how we validate the implementation of the SDGs.

I am proud to say throughout this session, we have put in a lot of efforts to reform how the General Assembly incorporates scientific input into its work.

We have conducted science briefings, recognized the need for a shared knowledge repository and supported Member States taking initiative to drive our efforts forward.

Dear friends,

We know that by now we are confronted by what is called clear and present danger.

As the saying goes, sometimes there is no next time.

No timeouts. No second chances.

Sometimes, it is now or never.

Let us transform our world.

We can still do it.

Transformation is happening anyway.

But it makes a huge difference whether we are masters or victims of the transformation.

Let us act boldly and use one of the weapons we have for this battle.

Synergies.

Thank you very much.