EU Statement – UN General Assembly: Draft resolution on Sea-Level Rise

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Mr. President of the General Assembly, Colleagues,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the EU and its Member States.

The Candidate Countries North Macedonia*, Montenegro^*, Serbia^*, Albania^*, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, and Bosnia and Herzegovina,^*as well as Andorra, Monaco and San Marino align themselves with this statement.

We would like to express our appreciation to the co-facilitators, the Permanent Representatives of Costa Rica and New Zealand, for guiding us successfully through this complex exercise. We agree fully with their repeated statements in the course of the consultations that climate change, including sea-level rise in particular, affect us all profoundly requiring decisive and urgent action. Any such action requires political will and broad international cooperation to be effective. Thanks to the leadership of the two co-facilitators we now have a General Assembly process dedicated to addressing the multifaceted threats posed by sea-level rise. We look forward to engaging in this process but also in other relevant fora tackling the sustainable development and climate angles of sea-level rise, including but not limited to UN Ocean Conferences.

I would like to make three observations on the resolution and the decision.

First, the EU and its Member States support fully the open, inclusive and transparent nature of the modalities of the High Level Plenary meeting. The meaningful participation of both the political leadership and the scientific community as well as civil society at large is paramount in order to identify and address the multitude of threats posed by sea-level rise.Secondly, we are supportive of the very broad agreement reached at the consultations and reflected in the resolution that the High level Plenary meeting and the subsequent process are without prejudice to, and should not pre-empt, other ongoing processes, specifically the work of the open-ended Study Group of the International Law Commission on the topic "Sea-level rise in relation to international law" and that under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Lastly,the EU and its Member States will participate actively in the High Level Plenary Meeting as well as the subsequent process that will culminate in another High Level Plenary Meeting at the 81^st session with the aim to sustain the urgency and scale up actions to address the effects of Sea-level rise. These actions should aim at ensuring the preservation of stability and security in international relations, including legal stability, certainty and predictability, should safeguard sustainable development, and respect human rights. They need to be in line with and respect UNCLOS, which sets out the legal framework within which all activities in the ocean and seas must be carried out.

Thank you.

*North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.

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