OECS Commission, Castries, St. Lucia, PARIS, France, Dec 09th 2015 – Following is the transcript of OECS Director General Dr Didacus Jules’ Speech to the plenary session of COP21 on Tuesday December 8th 2016.
Mr. President
Your Excellencies
Ladies & Gentlemen
We have come to Paris in unprecedented numbers at a time of exceptional pain with the blood of innocents in the streets from Paris to Mali to Nigeria to Syria and in many unmentioned and ignored places across the planet.
We feel the pain of all those families, and we share the resolve that this blood must not be spilt in vain. While we are here to find common resolve to the restoration of the health of the planet, we must also pause to express collective determination in the restoration of hope that the children of the Earth can live in peace,
can embrace our diversity,
can respect our differences,
and can share humanity’s inheritance of the Earth.
Within the wider Caribbean region, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States embraces ten small island states with a population of barely one million.
This image that we have brought to the podium today painted by one of our renowned artists – Jonathan Gladding – is a metaphor of the shared vulnerability of small island states. We are standing/feeling alone at the edge of catastrophe head held high struggling to breathe but feet planted firmly on the eroding islands of our patrimony.
There are no lesser children of Mother Earth and whether we belong to the multitudinous tribes of continents or the communal isolation of far flung islands, we all enjoy equal entitlement to a geographic room of our own.
When we demand 1.5 to stay alive, we are not simply championing a development cause; we are standing our ground against the rising water of climatic catastrophe as proudly as the young girl in this painting. We are fighting for nothing less than our survival and our right to preserve and protect the corner of Earth that we have inherited from our parents that is our sacred responsibility to pass to our children.
Throughout this week and well before, the science of the situation has been expounded and the reality of dangers that we face are indisputable. Yet there are those who doubt and who resist. What more can be said in this august forum?
When the logic of the word fails, we must rely on the power of the metaphor and so we have brought this visual metaphor to seek the convergence of science and conscience in the hope that it will yield binding agreement.
We seek transparency in the agreement that are as clear in their application as are the rising waters of this painting. In the vulnerability so eloquently expressed in this visual metaphor, the gravity of the peril is matched by the resolve to stand tall above the rising threat.
Our vulnerability is as slender as this iconic island girl but we will not go under; we will stand upright; we are prepared to model the new environmental paradigm that ensures sustainable futures. We reiterate in unison with all Caribbean and Small Island voices that have spoken before our core demands of 1.5 to stay alive; the recognition of loss and damage and the provision of adequate financing for adaptation measures.
http://unfccc6.meta-fusion.com/cop21/events/2015-12-08-15-00-conference-of-the-parties-cop-9th-meeting-conference-of-the-parties-serving-as-the-meeting-of-the-parties-to-the-kyoto-protocol-cmp-7th-meeting/pacific-islands-forum-secretariat-1
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