GFDD Reports on the Special Events of the 69th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

GFDD staff was busy covering a week of intense activity at the United Nations in New York as the High-level meetings of the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly (the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN) got underway on Monday, September 22.

On Tuesday September 23, GFDD attended the UN Climate Summit, a
High-level meeting organized by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, to engage leaders and advance climate action and ambition. The purpose of the 2014 Climate Summit was to raise political momentum for a meaningful universal climate agreement in Paris in 2015 and to galvanize transformative action in all countries to reduce emissions and build resilience to the adverse impacts of climate change.

An unprecedented number of world leaders attended the Summit, including 100 Heads of State and Government. H.E Mr. Barack Obama, President of the United States stressed that the "urgent and growing threat of climate change" would ultimately "define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other" issue. H.E, Mr David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom  confirmed that it
would reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80% by 2050 below 1990 levels while the European Union countries committed to a target of reducing emissions to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030. Developed and developing countries started pulling together to capitalize the Green Climate Fund (GCF), a climate change fund for poor countries – by pledging more than US$2 billion.

Further messages were delivered by other guest speakers including Leonardo DiCaprio, Actor
and UN Messenger of Peace, who addressed the Summit as a “concerned citizen” and stated that climate change must be promptly addressed. Noting the need to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, he underscored that renewable energy is good economic policy and called for “courage and honesty” from global leaders. Bill de Blasio, Mayor, City of New York, also spoke at the event to emphasize the tragic deaths in New York due to extreme weather events and
underscore the urgency for a global movement to tackle climate change. He announced the goal of New York to reduce 80% of its GHG emissions by 2050.

The Member State delegates were also joined at the Summit by more than 800 leaders from business, finance and civil society who participated in negotiations sessions on key action areas including Agriculture, Cities, Energy, Financing, Forests, Industry, Resilience and Transportation. The sessions resulted in the creation of
numerous coalitions including the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (comprised of 16 countries and 37 organizations) which will seek to enable 500 million farmers worldwide to practice climate-smart agriculture by 2030, a new Global Mayors Compact representing well over 2,000 cities that pledged new commitments on climate action supported by new funding from public and private sources (228 cities have voluntary targets and strategies for GHG reductions, that could avoid up to
2.1 gigatons of GHG emissions per year) and the signature of the New York Declaration on Forests (launched and supported by more than 150 partners, including 28 government, 8 subnational governments, 35 companies, 16 indigenous peoples groups, and 45 NGO and civil society groups) which aims to halve the loss of natural forests globally by 2030.

For more information about the outcomes of the meeting please read GFDD’s Climate Summit policy report available here.

On Wednesday September 24, the Foundation co-sponsored the Civil Society Report Back on the UN Climate Summit, an event which provided a forum for civil society leaders to reflect on what was discussed during the Climate Summit, and what they heard from the people these leaders are meant to representing. The meeting
which was held at the Church Center for the United Nations from 8.45am to 10.45am and was a great success with a strong turn out from civil society representatives.

Jami Henn, co-founder of 350.org (a grassroots organization that puts together online campaigns, grassroots organizing in over 188 countries to build a global climate movement that will convince leaders to reduce the amount of CO2 in
the atmosphere from its current level of 400 parts per million to below 350 ppm) gave the keynote address. Mr. Henn pointed out to the audience that the People’s Climate March (co-organized by 350.org), which took place in New York on Sunday September 21, brought together 400,000 people and was particularly successful in speaking to the values that people understand. Mr. Henn explained that climate change is a
transcendental crisis issue that affects public health, food security and even national security. He told the audience that the campaigners present at the march helped reveal the extent to which the fossil fuel industries are blocking the fight against climate change. Contrasting this event with the mild achievements of the Climate Summit, Mr. Henn found that the Climate Summit was a reminder of the rigid politics of climate change, stressing that the real fight against the issue is in fact
now taking place in the street at the grassroots level. Ms. Nerra of IBON International also took to the podium to emphasize the main success of the Climate Summit, which was to finally bring a climate change agreement back on to the political agenda at the United Nations after the first agreement was signed in Rio, Brazil in 1992.

In the afternoon, GFDD headed to the
Trusteeship Council chamber for the for the Global Education First Initiative High-Level event, “Quality Education for the World We Want” taking place from 3pm to 5pm. This event which formed part of the Secretary General’s Global Initiative on Education, aimed to put every child in school, improve the quality of learning and foster global citizenship. The First Lady of the
United States, Michelle Obama, delivered the special key-note address. She vowed to work with world leaders and education advocates to ensure all girls and young women have the opportunity to go to school; calling for quality education and the empowerment of girls and women to form part of the post-2015 development agenda. Executive Secretary of the GEFI Steering Committee and Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova, pointed out that 58 million children are out of school and that 258
million children are illiterate with girls and women being the hardest hit. Ms. Bokova therefore impressed on world leaders how this global learning crisis undermines social cohesion and threatens stability. She highlighted that there was less than 500 days left to the deadline of the Education for All goals and Millennium Development goals and called for the mobilization of all partners, to ensure that all children receive a quality education.

On Thursday
September 25, GFDD attended a briefing on two important civil society initiatives relating to the post 2015 development agenda and climate change agenda. The first was a briefing on Action/2015, a major new public campaign that will seek to build public pressure on our leaders to commit to ambitious and transformative action to end poverty, address inequality and ensure sustainable development in the
intergovernmental negotiations that will conclude in 2015. The next briefing was on The Big Development DataShift. This is an ambitious initiative looking to invest in the ability of citizens and civil society organizations to collect and curate data so that we can improve the monitoring and accountability of the post-2015 sustainable development goals (SDGs). The briefing will take place from 4pm to 6:30pm at the
offices of the Open Society Foundations, at 224 W. 57th Street in New York City.

Finally, on Friday September 26, the Foundation attended a High-level special event co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Italy, Palau and Monaco on the importance of Oceans within the Post 2015 Development Agenda, entitled “Healthy Oceans and Seas: Paving the Way
Towards a Sustainable Development Goal”. The discussion will take place at 4.00pm in Conference Room 7 of the UN Secretariat Building. The event sought to explore policies and strategies that will allow Sustainable Development Goal 14 to be achieved, including in relation to Goal No. 2 on ending hunger and achieving food security, particularly in those regions where the livelihood, food and nutrition, as well as general wellbeing of the populations, directly depend upon the health
of the oceans and seas. The discussion included interventions by several high level speakers from small island developing states.

Ms. Helena Semedo, Deputy Director-General  of the Food and Agriculture Organization started the discussion by stressing that “50 million tons of fish are overfished each year costing governments billions of dollars each year”. She explained that “A more effective seafood chain could contribute to food
security”. For this reason, she stated that the blue economy initiative was created to create the tools needed to implement this new sustainable use of marine resources.

H.E. T. Remengesau, President of Palau spoke next to stress that we must support the adoption of an Ocean SDG as a standalone goal. Explaining how the country’s plan to make the nation a
marine sanctuary where industrial fishing would be prohibited, President Remengesau stressed that “Marine Protected Areas are an integral to ensuring a sustainable fisheries economy and the rebuilding of fish stocks across the world”. H.E. Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iceland aligned himself with President Remengesau in calling for a standalone goal on Oceans within the SIDS.

President Waheed of the Republic of the Maldives
supported the statements made by the previous speakers and stressed that his government supports similar policies, explaining that deep sea trawling is banned in the Maldives and that pole and line fishing practices are implemented instead. President Waheed called for further public private partnerships to complement the commitments outlined in an Oceans SDG. He explained that together with Palau, the Marshall Islands and other such SIDS, the Maldives are part of a shark coalition looking
to ban shark finning, and that its members are working towards achieving a UN resolution to ban these practices globally.

Other speakers also participated in the discussion including Fisher Stevens, Director of Mission Blue, who explained that the premise of his film was about legendary oceanographer, marine biologist, environmentalist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia
Earle, and her campaign to create a global network of protected marine sanctuaries, in addition to a representative from Finmeccanica who explained the advances in radar and satellite technology to monitor the implementation of fishing restrictions on a planetary scale.

To find out more about the
general program of events during the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly, please visit the official website at http://www.un.org/en/ga/69/meetings/index.shtml

GFDD Policy Reports
UN Climate Summit 2014: http://www.globalfoundationdd.org/documentos/policy_report_climate_summit_sept23.pdf
Global Education First Initiative High Level Event:
http://www.globalfoundationdd.org/documentos/report_global_education_first_initiative.pdf

Related links:
http://www.globaleducationfirst.org/about.html
http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/about/
http://www.action2015.org/
http://civicus.org/thedatashift/
http://www.un.org/en/ga/69/meetings/index.shtml
http://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/about/mdg.shtml