Garfield Ekon
Staff Writer
President of the United Nations General Assembly (PGA), Mr. Dennis Francis has called for extending of access to electricity for over 600 million people, and provision of clean cooking solutions to over 2 billion people.
Making the call while addressing delegates at the close of the UN General Assembly’s first-ever Sustainability Week, recently, he said rapidly accelerating the transitions to clean, renewable energy, and dramatically scaling up finance and investment for developing countries, are very important.
“And boosting public-private partnerships, particularly for technology transfer for least developed countries,” he said, noting that the past decade has seen renewable energy surge in every corner of the globe, albeit not yet at the pace or scale required to either power the lives of all people, everywhere, nor to rein in the worst impacts of Climate Change.
“We need to accelerate the transitions to a clean and renewable energy systems, all the while recognizing different national situations, priorities, pathways, and approaches, and I urgently call on Member States and other stakeholders, encompassing the UN system, civil society, private sector, women, youth, academia, among others, to follow up on the United Nations Decade of Sustainable Energy for All,” he told the delegates.
Of importance too, the President said it is urgent to sustain and strengthen international dialogue and cooperation on energy at the UN, including through a “potential UN conference on energy.”
The four-day event also had high-level events on sustainable debt and socio-economic equality, sustainable tourism, sustainable transport, infrastructure connectivity, and the Global Stocktake marking the end of the UN’s Decade for Sustainable Energy for All.
In recognising the need for individual actions, the President launched a campaign, called #ChooseSustainability, to encourage Member States, Missions, delegates, UN Staff and the general public to commit to sustainable actions. Along with the participation of dozens of Member States and Permanent Missions to the UN, the campaign also saw over 150,000 ‘actions’ declared on the UN’s Act Now app.
“I am deeply grateful to all those who joined us and chose sustainability; but this is not a one-off and I fully intend to continue emphasizing this call to action throughout the remainder of my Presidency, and in the lead-up to the Summit of the Future, in September,” he said.
During A high-level meeting on tourism, PGA welcomed the General Assembly’s endorsement of the Statistical Framework on Measuring Sustainability in Tourism. PGA will also submit, as an outcome of the High-Level Meeting on Sustainable Transport, his contribution to the implementation plan for the UN Decade on Sustainable Transport.
