UNRC Ozonnia Ojielo's speech at the Launch of the Stockholm+50 National Consultations in Kyrgyzstan

Theme: Fair for People and Planet

UN Resident Coordinator in the Kyrgyz Republic

Keynote Speaker

Your Excellencies,

Dear friends and colleagues from Government institutions, development partners,

My dear colleagues Louise Chamberlain, and other heads of agencies from the UN system,

Friends from civil society,

Good morning.

Over the last 50 years, human ingenuity has created the basis for prosperity and development - hundreds of millions of people have been lifted from poverty, but also gained access to education and health. But this has come with a great cost. This is what science tells us that an increasingly degraded planet has become evident. We see that in the reference my colleague Louise made to air pollution, climate variegation and instability, nature loss, plastic waste, nitrogen overload, anti-microbial resistance, chemicals and rising toxicity. All of this is impacting our wellbeing as human beings. So this interconnectedness has increased the pace and scale of risk transfer. I think the evidence is obvious in Kyrgyzstan, even though we are not a major actor in all of these issues.

As we launch the Stockholm+50 National Consultations, the timing could not have been better, because just recently we have the report of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) Report Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. This was launched on 4 April by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The IPCC report makes clear that we have everything we need to combat rising temperatures, yet the biggest question is where is our will, where is our political commitment, where is our concern for our plant but also for the future of humanity.

As you may know, this prestigious scientific body (IPCC) that consists of scientists from UN member states, has been assessing science related to climate change for the past 30 years and continuously underscores the threats of climate change. But what is different in this year’s report is that it is saying to us we need to step up our sense of urgency. The time for action might be passing us by unless we do things differently.  

The UN Secretary-General’s statement in launching that report is apropos. He said the report, and I’m quoting him, is a “litany of broken climate promises” and “it is a file of shame, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world”. End of quote. You could not put it more dramatically.

For him to resort to such a statement is necessary, because if we are to keep the 1.5-degree limit agreed in Paris within reach, it means we need to cut global emissions by 45 percent this decade. But current climate pledges actually mean a 14 percent increase in emissions. This should tell us how dramatic the situation is and how challenging for all of us.  

Unfortunately, the Central Asia and Kyrgyzstan in particular is at risk from these dynamics, considering the potential for a 6.5oC increase in temperatures by 2100. Particularly alarming for all of us is the melting of glaciers in our region. Over the last 70 years the glaciers melted by up to 17%, and the fear, the risk, the analysis, the research suggest that many could entirely disappear by the turn of the century. The scale and frequency of natural disasters associated with climate change has increased 1.5 times over the past 12 years and we see the cascading impact on our society and our economy. We know about the disproportionate impact of climate change on the poor, especially rural women and children from marginalized communities living in areas particularly vulnerable to climate change. And the women suffer the burden of unpaid home labor, physical and social violence, low incidence of paid work, perpetual cycle of poverty, high rate of non-communicable diseases. I’m speaking to the converted. We all know the statistics. We all use them in different ways. It is clear that the links between poverty and climate change continue to deepen and extends to sexual and gender-based violence. Child and forced marriages can occur as a harmful coping strategy among those who suffer from climate change related economic stress. Following a natural disaster, women may be expected to attend to increased family demands and so they are deprived of time and opportunities necessary for them to rejoin the labor force and which limits their income generation capabilities.

These trends signal that it is more than diminishing energy production, intensifying food insecurity, and damaging the country’s rich ecosystems and biodiversity. Actually, for Kyrgyzstan, for Central Asia, and for all of us, it is a matter of survival. Therefore we should commend our Government for being in the forefront of the discourse and through our Nationally Determined Contributions. We need to scale up and intensify our visibility and advocacy on these issues, because it is indeed a matter of survival for Kyrgyzstan.   

To be “Fair to the planet and the people”, we need to do many things, and do them urgently. The scientific evidence is clear that the extraction and burning of coal for energy is not only one of the biggest cause of greenhouse gas emissions, but it is also a great risk to human health, this is just one example of multiple risks it brings.

So, the report sets out viable, financially sound options in every sector that can keep the possibility of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees alive. First and foremost, we must triple the speed of the shift to renewable energy. We have a green strategy in Kyrgyzstan. We recently had a forum on renewable energy. Her Excellency the Minister mentions the leadership of the Government on planting of trees. We need to intensify the transition to renewable energy sources as part of transformation that will enable us to cope with these risk.

The National Forum on the Development of Renewable Energy took place about two months ago, in February. The Chair of the Cabinet of Ministers reconfirmed, despite low emission levels (0,03% of the global emissions) that we see in Kyrgyzstan, that the Kyrgyz Republic remains fully committed to addressing the global challenge of climate change, and the Nationally Determined Contributions is a brilliant document, but it needs the financing to make it happen.  

We see many strong evidences, the Minister in her speech was very clear on that as well, that decision-makers in this country understand the importance of addressing the challenge and are making every effort. Now they need our support - civil society, research centers, academia, development partners to engage in this, otherwise our results might become limited.

I would like to commend and thank H.E. Sadyr Nurgozhoevich for announcing this year the Year of Protection of Forest Ecosystems and Climate Sustainability and launching a national campaign Zhashyl Muras (in Kyrgyz it means: Green Heritage) aimed at planting over a million trees every year. And the process has started. That is the kind of leadership that is required to take this forward. I would like to thank Azamat Azatbekovich as well your and your colleagues’ unwavering commitment to championing this cause. This is timely, as we have less than a decade left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This reforestation campaign is exactly the kind of action that is needed to take the spirit and the principles of the Stockholm+50 forward.

There are many quick policy wins and examples include use of solar and wind energy, the electrification of urban systems, greening of our cities, energy efficiency, improved forest, crop and grassland management and reduced food waste and loss. Importantly, these actions are technically viable and increasingly cost-effective. In all these scenarios, the Report talks about the concept of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) that is increasingly integrated into climate policy, as a new element of mitigation strategies. It aims to address the primary human source of climate change by removing carbon dioxide permanently from the atmosphere to be stored underground or under the ocean floor. If deployed at a planetary scale, CDR could help prevent ocean acidification and slow the rate of global warming.

So let us hope that these consultations will challenge us to explore new avenues to tackle the greenhouse gas emission problems.

On behalf of the UN system I commit, myself and my colleagues under UNDP technical leadership and coordination to support the Government and the people of the Kyrgyz Republic in addressing these fundamental challenges. I wish all of us successful consultations today.

Chong rakhmat.