India takes on major role in fighting climate change: Guterres
- by Xavier Trudeau
- in Financer
- — Jan 13, 2018
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for global efforts to adopt measures to support refugees and migrants. "It powers economic growth, reduces inequalities, connects diverse societies and helps us ride the demographic waves of population growth and decline", said Mr Guterres, launching his report, Making Migration Work for All, at UN Headquarters, in NY on Thursday.Globally, migrants make a major contribution to global development both by their work as well as through remittances back to their home countries. "I believe the Group of 77 will be particularly attentive to the need to make sure that any reform gives effective contribution to a more balanced and democratic United Nations, where power is better distributed and justice can prevail more easily".
He said he saw India and China "assuming the leadership in climate action to make sure that we don't suffer the dramatic and devastating impact of climate change", he added.
"We can not be defeated by climate change and we are not yet winning this battle", he said on Friday at a ceremony in which Egypt took over the chairmanship of the "Group of 77 (or G77) and China" from Ecuador.
Guterres was speaking on Friday at a ceremony at which Egypt took over the chairmanship of the G77 from Ecuador.
"We can not be defeated by climate change and we are not yet winning this battle" and the biggest victims of climate change are the developing countries that are members of the Group of 77 (G77).
"And, of course the centre of that is the reform of the Security Council", he said.
The G77 is a coalition of developing countries that works collectively on development and worldwide economic issues.
Guterres told United Nations member countries on Thursday that the migrant issue is one of the top priorities for 2018.
Guterres said that the G77 has been the "central pillar in the defence of multilateralism and these are not easy times for multilateralism".
Development and eradication of poverty would be a priority of the group. Poverty remains the root cause of the bulk of the problems that the world faces.
One of his priorities, he said, would be to create a clear, multilateral roadmap for dealing with the frontier issues that are arising from technologies.
Guterres, the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees, once again made case for countries to step up routes to legal migration in his address to the UN General Assembly. Find us on Facebook too!
