CANZ EXPLANATION OF POSITION ON THE ADOPTION OF THE HLPF MINISTERIAL DECLARATION
17 July 2024
Statement by H.E. Ms Rebecca Bryant, Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations
Ms President, Excellencies,
I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of Canada, New Zealand and my own country, Australia.
We would like to start by expressing our appreciation to the Dominican Republic, H.E. Ambassador José Blanco, and Norway, H.E. Merete Fjeld Brattested for their efforts in facilitating this Ministerial Declaration.
We have joined consensus in the spirit of utmost flexibility, but we would like to register our strong discomfort with the text before us and the amendment voted a few minutes ago.
CANZ wishes to state for the record that our vote on the proposed amendment was on procedural grounds. We consider the introduction of this amendment to be hostile, and accordingly, voted to reject it.
Ms. President, Member States negotiated this document for months, and came to agreement on a text that all of our Ministers could accept. No delegation got everything they wanted, and many delegations, including ours, remain disappointed in the final outcome.
However, in the spirit of compromise and consensus, we have accepted the final document due to the high importance we place on the issues within it, and the priority this text has for our partners.
As such, we consider the effort to alter the text via an amendment, proposed by small group of countries, as disruptive and an affront to the long hours, hard work, and difficult compromises we all made to reach this point.
This is our firm view, regardless of the substance of the amendment.
Ms. President, with regard to the Ministerial Declaration we just adopted and its content, CANZ remains disappointed and concerned by the language on gender equality and climate change.
Specifically, we are deeply concerned that language on gender equality is essentially a copy of paragraph 20 from the 2030 Agenda and lacks genuine commitment and ambition.
We must acknowledge the critical importance to our current context and future generations as well as be forward leaning on more than a select few issues. We cannot achieve the vision of the 2030 Agenda, including universal respect for human rights, if we are leaving women and girls behind.
Our declarations matter. This declaration matters. The omission of language that goes beyond the 2030 agenda and a text that falls short of previously agreed language in the HLPF context should give all of us pause.
Stagnation, or worse, regression, on gender equality undermines our sustainable development efforts and future generations.
We have repeatedly recognized, at the UN and at the highest level, that gender equality is needed for all the SDGs. Yet this Declaration only briefly notes the linkages between gender equality and two of the SDGs – 1 and 16.
Let us stop simply stating that the systematic mainstreaming of a gender perspective is crucial and start doing it. Gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment should have been discussed in the context of each SDG under review this year.
A disappointing start to a new cycle of HLPF and coming out of the SDG Summit to say the least.
We, as Member States, must hold ourselves to account on our commitments to gender equality and the human rights of all women and girls.
In addition, we are deeply concerned that language on climate change, including on loss and damage, does not fully reflect language from the UNFCCC COP.
We are even more concerned that language and joint commitments on 1.5 degrees pathways and transition from fossil fuels was simply disregarded.
These are key COP outcomes that should have been reflected in the text. This is particularly disappointing in a year when SDG13 is under review.
Addressing the triple planetary crisis, including climate change, requires a sustained effort on all fronts and by all of us.
Ms. President,
In conclusion, CANZ is disheartened that, again this year, so much time in negotiations was spent arguing over agreed language and has led to this tepid outcome.
We should instead be using our time to have substantive discussions on the SDGs which are furthest behind and how to further their progress.
We should be trying to move forward, at pace and scale, rather than fighting over standing still.
This will ensure the relevance of the HLPF going forward and through the Decade of Action.
Thank you.