Statement by Principal Secretary for Environment, Energy and Climate Change of Seychelles
Statement by Principal Secretary for Environment, Energy and Climate Change of Seychelles
Monday 14th November 2016 at 0900 am at China Pavilion
Your Excellency XIE Zhenhua China’s Special Representative for
Climate Change Affairs
David Nabarro Special Adviser of the United Nations
Secretary-General on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Climate Change
Salaheddine Mezouar Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Morocco
Mr. Ibrahim Thiaw,Deputy Executive Director of UN Environment, Excellences, Invited Guests, Participants
Ladies and gentlemen
A very good morning to you all.
It gives me great pleasure and honour to say these few words to you today on the occasion of the High-Level Forum on South-South Cooperation on Climate Change.
It is an excellent opportunity for me to be here today to share myviews that have made Seychelles resilient in the face of this global problem,of which Seychelles, has not been spared.
The Seychelles is composed of 155 beautiful small islands spread over 1.4 km2 of ocean. It is a maritime country, with a small landmass of about 455 Km2. It depends on tourism and fisheries for its national development, having few other resources. The country is thus dependent on the quality of the environment. And its population of 92,000, concentrated on 3 main islands depend on us to make the right decisions that will impact their life today and the life of future generations to come. It is for them that we are gathered today in Marrakech and at this high-level event.
Ladies and gentlemen
The onslaught of adverse climate change impacts across SIDS, this year alone, underscores the pressing need to act and implementthe Paris Agreement in earnest. Just six months ago the southernmost islands of the Seychelles archipelago was flattened by a category 5 Tropical Cyclone, the most powerful in the South-west Indian Ocean basin ever to make landfall coupled with the most severe coral-bleaching event turning our reefs bone white across the archipelago.
We cannot afford to let the world lose the sense of urgency for climate action that preceded the Paris conference. The stakes are higher than ever. These impacts and record high temperatures globally already occurring for a global mean warming of around 1 degree Celsius reinforces the necessity and wisdom of the Paris Agreement long term temperature limit of 1.5 degree C, and reinforce our understanding that this is a limit we must not breach and that all efforts globally now need to go into peaking and then reducing global emissions as fast as possible.
Sothere is anurgent need to accelerate climate actionworldwide to address one of the most serious global challenge confronting the planet and its inhabitants. Even as the situation worsens and threaten billions around the world, but I have to point out that there are still those dissenting voices of doubt, naysayers and perhaps, people refusing to take their responsibility seriouslythus delaying prompt climate action.
For Seychelles, ecosystems, which are also key resources for our livelihoods and survival are also being affected, are being threatened by climate change.
This is why Seychelles is presently undertaking a south-south project, "Enhancing capacity, knowledge and technology support to build climate resilience of vulnerable developing countries" which is a full-sized GEF project funded through the Special Climate Change Fund (GEF-SCCF) that aims to build resilience using an ecosystem management approach. The project is being implemented by UNEP and executed by the National Development and Reform Commission of China (NDRC).
Nepal and Mauritania are the other two countries implementing adaptation project under the same international project funding.
Being implemented at a total cost of nearly 840,000 USD on a duration of four years and is expected to end by mid of next year. The project is spreading through the rehabilitation and planting of mangroves and wetland restoration and by increasing interconnectivity of the wetlands to cover over 400 hectares of areas on selected sites on three main islands of Seychelles.
The main objective and reason behind the project implementation is that Seychelles is highly vulnerable to climate change effects and our Coastal communities and low lying ecosystems are facing severe impacts and struggling to adapt to the climate change and to make them resilient and adaptive to the changes.
The Project involves ecosystem based adaptation into the country‘s climate change risk management system and to buffer expected and enhanced erosion and coastal flooding risks arising as a result of higher sea levels and increased storm surges.
The process also involves the empowering our coastal communities’ participation and adoption of project sites, allowing for nature to restore the currently degraded ecosystem services and keenly looking to alleviate flood, coastal inundation and socio-economic vulnerabilities faced by the communities.
Education and awareness program, training and training of trainers and community empowerment and restoration of sites with mangrove rehabilitation are forming part of the program.
The prioritized sites under the project on Mahe, Praslin and on Curieuse are the key areas that receive impacts from Climate Change and flooding and hence proposed with measures to resolve the issue and to help the sites to be resilient to the changes.
Through this South-South collaboration initiative, supported and inspired by the work of the Chinese Academy of Sciences the Ministry of Environment Energy and Climate Change has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Seychelles to facilitate the research and continuation of the adaptation projects in line with the University curriculum – Science Degree program.
As a follow up another Long Term Research program with the Science faculty which was signed a month ago, and under this, science graduates are expected to undertake research, monitoring and evaluation of the selected study sites as part of their degree dissertation program.
The community awareness and education training component of mangrove identification and planting techniques has reached a massive group through three sessions of training of Trainers program held at the beginning of this year on the two main islands to achieve the goals of the project.
Through the implementation of this project, the cooperation between China and Seychelles is being enhanced, resulting in the development of a new dimension of international cooperation on climate change.
This is a true example of an innovative partnership in South-South cooperationand the way forward for the future, because it delivers dynamic solutions that offer real, measurable benefits to communities, environments, businesses and governments.
But, without doubt, South-South co-operation is helping countries to shape their own, nationally appropriate paths to sustainable and inclusive development.
South-South co-operation is an increasingly important modality for action. The South has emerged as a significant producer of low-carbon technologies and innovation. As South-South co-operation scales up, more countries will benefit from the impressive examples of low-carbon, climate resilient development pathway found within the Global South, which can deliver new jobs and reduce both poverty and environmental degradation.
The UNFCCC process opens up a number of opportunities to strengthen South-South co-operation. The Green Climate Fund could, for example, foster South-South co-operation, to speed up “finance readiness” support. Through South-South co-operation, countries can learn from the early experiences of others – helping them to lower the costs and improve the process.
South-South and triangular co-operation can then help countries to meet funding criteria, build capacity, and use public funds in catalytic ways which will leverage additional investment. Such efforts, in turn, could help shape the efforts of the Green Climate Fund to lower the transaction costs of accessing monies and make climate finance more accessible to SIDS.
I take this opportunity to commend the Government of the Republic of China for its substantial contributions towards climate change adaptation and mitigation through the South-South cooperation. I commend also the Chinese leadership on questions of climate change that has sought to engage actively with Small Island Developing States.
I am delighted to hear from the Deputy Executive Director of UN Environment, Mr. Ibrahim Thiaw, that UN Environment is launching a new Flagship Programme on Climate, Ecosystems and Livelihoods (CEL), to be led by UNEP-IEMP and supported by China, in order to assist the effective delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Climate Agreement.
I gather that CEL will facilitate the continuation and upscaling of successful South-South cooperation initiatives such as our joint project EbA South.It will strengthen theexchange of knowledge and good practices among developing countries, including SIDS like Seychelles for strengthening climate resilience through mangrove restoration andrehabilitation of coastal wetlands.
The idea of supporting developing countries to improve livelihoods through ecosystems’ restoration and conservation, in the context of climate change is very innovative
I believe that the programme will bring significant benefits to countries like Seychelles, particularly through the work of the Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (CERN)and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which are already supporting capacity building in our country.
The Seychelles welcome this initiative and are eager to participate in the activities that are about to be launched.
With this I am thanking you all once again for the opportunity
Thank you.
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