Secretary-General, at Green Silk Road Forum, Stresses Living in Harmony with Nature Requires Investment in Fast-Tracking Climate-Resilient Development, Infrastructure
Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks at the High-Level Forum on the Green Silk Road for Harmony with Nature, in Beijing today:
The developing world faces an infrastructure emergency. Billions of people live in communities without the basics. From electricity, running water and clean sanitation systems. To roads, bridges and railways that keep people and goods moving. To Internet access, and public services and buildings that can withstand, and recover from, climate-related extreme weather.
Meanwhile, unsustainable development is destroying jungles, forests and wetlands, poisoning our water, land and air with chemicals, pesticides and plastics. Nearly a million species are teetering on the brink of extinction — plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates.
And humanity is badly losing the race against climate change, which is running faster than we are. Our addiction to fossil fuels has resulted in record-shattering heat and wildfires, melting glaciers, rising seas, ferocious floods and epic storms that destroy crops and devastate lives.
The world’s most vulnerable people, communities and countries are paying the highest price. They’re forced to fend for themselves while living on the edge of disaster, without the resilient infrastructure or financial support they need to adapt, and deal with the effects of decades of loss and damage. This is unjust, unfair and unsustainable.
The scale, number and scope of the projects and investments undertaken by the Belt and Road Initiative can literally change landscapes — economies, energy systems, transportation, buildings and entire industries. And this must be done in ways that preserve our children’s future.
We must act together to ensure that projects deliver the green, sustainable infrastructure countries need to support people and ecosystems alike, while breaking free of failed development models that keep us hooked on fossil fuels.
I recognize the efforts to improve permanently the sustainability of Belt and Road investments. And I want to highlight the enormous potential of these investments to place us on the road to safeguarding the 1.5°C temperature limit and delivering climate justice at the pace and scale we need, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.
As we look ahead, I see two key areas where the Green Silk Road can help step-up our efforts.
First, investments flowing from the Green Silk Road are an important opportunity to fast-track sustainable and climate-resilient development to protect lives and livelihoods. We need green transportation and municipal power systems anchored in renewable sources that don’t pollute the environment or destroy biodiversity — including providing affordable electricity to all people. We need building and construction industries taking their impacts on nature into account across their plans and projects.
We need buildings and water and power-systems that are climate-resilient and able to continue serving communities in the face of disaster. And we need local and national planning alike to embed resilience and adaptation across all plans for the future. UN agencies across the world stand ready to support the design and implementation of these projects under the auspices of the Belt and Road.
Second — We must ensure that any new infrastructure investments, including through the Green Silk Road, turbocharge a just and sustainable transition away from planet-wrecking fossil fuels towards renewable energy. This is critical to cutting emissions and limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C.
To help us get there, the Climate Solidarity Pact calls on major emitters to make extra efforts to cut emissions, and wealthier countries to support emerging economies to do the same. And the Acceleration Agenda calls on Governments to hit fast-forward on their energy transitions.
This requires advanced economies, with their greater financial and technological capacities and capabilities, moving first and fastest. And emerging economies must be supported with finance and technology to accelerate the decarbonization of their economies while meeting their development needs.
Making this happen requires developed countries keeping their promises. To deliver the $100 billion for developing country climate action per year. To double adaptation finance by 2025. To operationalize the loss and damage fund at COP28 [twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] next month.
And I have also been calling for an end to the licensing of new oil and gas projects and to fossil fuel subsidies. And I have called for credible plans to refrain from launching new coal projects and to exit coal by 2030 for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and 2040 for the rest of the world — along with ambitious renewable energy goals in line with the 1.5°C limit.
The Green Silk Road can be a critical part of this process to fast-track a fair, equitable and just energy transition, as we bring clean and affordable power to all and travel true net-zero pathways.
As the title of this event suggests, we need to live in harmony with nature — not wage war on it. For too long, infrastructure development and the protection and conservation of our planet have been at odds. This has led to crisis after crisis. And it has driven a wedge of inequality and mistrust among countries, communities and the people of the world.
The Green Silk Road is an important tool that can help us all pull us out of the dead ends of the past, and set us on a new pathway that benefits people and planet alike.