Eduardo González
The third and last day of the acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, at the UN High-Level Week, held in New York in the framework of the 78th session of the General Assembly, included yesterday the announcement of a new contribution of 262 million euros against the climate emergency and the express support of Spain for sustainable development, the fight against climate change, multilateralism and the end of the Russian invasion in Ukraine.
The day began with Sánchez’s speech at the Business Economic Forum, organized, as every year, by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New York and also attended by the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares.
Afterwards, the head of the Executive took part in the Climate Ambition Summit, convened by António Guterres at the United Nations headquarters in New York, during which Pedro Sánchez announced that Spain will allocate 262 million euros to finance the countries’ fight against climate change, broken down into 225 million for the second replenishment of the Green Climate Fund, 20 million for the Adaptation Fund and 17 million to finance the so-called Climate Justice (aimed at the most vulnerable and at mitigating losses and damages). “We must undertake fair and inclusive transitions that leave no one behind in a spirit of responsibility,” he stated.
Sánchez also urged the other participating leaders to act simultaneously, on all fronts and with greater determination, through more ambitious national commitments that enable the elimination of fossil fuels and the promotion of renewable energies and that contribute to reaching a maximum peak of emissions in 2025 to bring them down to 43% in 2030 with respect to 2019 levels. In this sense, he showed his support for the commitment promoted by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to triple the installed capacity of renewable energies and double efforts in energy efficiency within seven years.
At the end of the Summit, Pedro Sánchez took part in the signing of the Agreement on the Conservation of Biological Diversity, which guarantees the protection of 30% of marine waters, the provision of more resources for the conservation of biodiversity and the equitable sharing of the benefits derived from the uses of the sea and “in whose negotiation Spain played a particularly active role”, as he later explained at a press conference.
Ukraine
Later, and after appearing before the media at the Spanish Mission to the United Nations, Pedro Sánchez participated in a meeting of the United Nations Security Council convened by the Albanian rotating Presidency to address the situation in Ukraine. In his speech, Sánchez reiterated his firm condemnation of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and his support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. “There is no room for equidistance in the analysis of the situation,” Sánchez stressed. In this conflict, he warned, “there is an aggressor and an aggressed” and, therefore, it is necessary to support President Volodymir Zelensky’s peace formula, since it should be up to Ukraine, as the aggressed country, to determine the moment and conditions for initiating the process to put an end to the conflict.
The acting president also warned that the legitimate aspirations of each country cannot be defended “at the cost of violating by force the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries” and, in this regard, reiterated his concern that violations of these principles are being committed “by a permanent member of the main international body responsible for ensuring them”, that is, the United Nations Security Council.
Pedro Sánchez also recalled the devastating impact that this war is having on food, nuclear or energy security around the world and called on the Russian Federation to stop using hunger as a weapon of war and to return immediately to the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
“In order to achieve peace it is necessary for Russia to put an end to its aggression and immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all its troops from the entire territory of Ukraine,” said the acting Prime Minister, who emphasized the importance of holding a broad debate on security in Europe, a debate that “is not possible while the sovereignty and territorial integrity of one of the parties is violated.”
General Assembly
Pedro Sánchez’s participation in the High-Level Week concluded with his address to the 78th General Assembly of the United Nations, in which he reiterated the messages and announcements made over the past few days in New York: the defense of multilateralism in the face of “an extremist and reactionary wave” that “is growing all over the world and is also present in Europe”, the fight against climate change, the defense of the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals and the need to provide adequate resources and instruments for development aid and to ensure that countries have access to the necessary funding, regardless of their income level. He also defended “a more human digital transformation” and announced Spain’s desire to host the headquarters of the future International Agency for Artificial Intelligence.
Likewise, Sánchez made a defense of democracy against a “reactionary wave driven by movements that share a strategy: the promise of a return to a mythical past that never existed, the marginalization and criminalization of disadvantaged minorities, the rejection of equality and the trivialization of feminism or the questioning of human, civil and social rights”, and gave as an example the crisis generated in Spain around women’s football: “Spain has said it’s over, it’s over with all the consequences, because every time a woman advances we all advance”. “There is no greater antidote to reactionary extremism than feminism,” he said.
The acting president insisted that “Spain favors a mutually acceptable political solution” for Western Sahara “within the framework of the United Nations Charter and the resolutions of the Security Council” and expressed his confidence that, “as soon as possible, an agreement can be reached between the European Union and the United Kingdom” on Gibraltar. “We wish to work for the development of a prosperous, social and economic area that encompasses the entire area of Gibraltar and the Campo de Gibraltar,” he added.
As expected, Pedro Sánchez reiterated his condemnation of Russia’s “unjustified and illegal war of aggression” and assured that “Spain has stood and will stand by Ukraine with political, humanitarian, military and financial support that we will maintain as long as necessary”. He also paid tribute to Emma Igual, the aid worker from Barcelona who died last September 10 during a Russian attack in Ukraine, who should serve as an inspiration to “speak with facts and concrete achievements, move from words to action” and an example of the “need to take sides in the face of injustice and not remain silent in the face of the violation of human rights and the most basic rules of peaceful coexistence between nations”.
