Consultation on Key Institutional, Technical, and Financial Bottlenecks to the Implementation of the Country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and the Paris Agreement

Good morning, members of the UN Country Team, colleagues and friends,

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Green One UN House – the common space and home of UN agencies in Viet Nam. I am very pleased to see such a good turn-out and the attention that you are giving to the topics that will be discussed through 6 half-day sessions this week. As we are frequently reminded, climate change is the defining issue of our time and, according to many reports, we only have about 12 years to act together if we are to reduce catastrophic impacts on our societies, as warned by the 2018 IPCC Special report on Global Warming. The 2018 UN Emission Gap report on current national climate pledges at the same time notes that the current Nationally Determined Contributions have set our planet on a path towards a global average temperature increase of 3ºC which is much greater than and therefore below the ambition of the Paris Agreement that aims to keep global average temperature increases well below 2ºC.

The UN system has a key role to play in supporting countries in their climate change mitigation and adaptation actions. The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals together provide a realistic and very good framework for us to act jointly. But there is a need for all countries to accelerate action and increase ambition. To this end, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres is calling a Climate Action Summit inviting all leaders to come to New York on 23 September this year with concrete, realistic plans to enhance their nationally determined contributions by 2020, in line with the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent over the next decade, with the objective of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

Preparations for this Summit are already well under way and a preparatory meeting will be held between 31 June - 1 July in the United Arab Emirates.

At country level, UN Resident Coordinators were asked by the UN Secretary General to lead efforts to help make the Summit a success and help support governments to increase their ambitions and particularly to identify key challenges and opportunities around the six transformative areas which the September Summit will cover: 1)energy transition, 2)industry transition, 3)infrastructure cities and local action, 4)resilience and adaptation, 5)nature-based solutions and 6)climate finance and carbon pricing. In addition, three cross-cutting themes across each of these six transformative areas will be discussed at the Summit focusing on mobilization of society, raising ambition, and bringing together synergies of key players’ mitigation strategies.

The UNCT Results Group on Climate Change and and Environment chaired by Dr. Albert Lieberg and with Caitlin Wiesen as Vice Chair, and within that UNDP, given its work in this area over many years, has been tasked by me to lead our support in this area (in close cooperation with other members of the Results Group) to the Government of Viet Nam through a jointly constituted working group I agreed with the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment.

These discussions are meant to help the UN Secretary General and global leaders identify the most effective actions that need to be urgently taken at both global and country levels. The UN in Viet Nam is here to listen to and note ideas which merit attention. My UN colleagues will listen attentively to and capture the most relevant ideas and share them with relevant stakeholders for their follow-up actions.

Thank you for coming today.