74thSession of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York: Climate Action Summit 2019 |25 September 2019

The Seychelles delegation at the Climate Action Summit

Seychelles commits to nationally determined contribution to Paris Agreement

President Danny Faure attended the official opening of the United Nations 2019 Climate Action Summit convened by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday morning at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, United States of America.

The summit, convened under the theme ‘Climate Action Summit 2019: A Race We Can Win. A Race We Must Win’, focused on mobilising political and economic energy at the highest levels towards the advancement of climate action. This will in return enable the further implementation of goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Addressing the assembly, President Faure shared some of the key national efforts being undertaken by Seychelles in line with the National Determined Contributions (NDC) as well as other national resilience strategies contributing towards environment protection as a large ocean state.

“We have an exclusive economic zone of 1.4 million square kilometres which is 3,000 times the size of our islands. The highlights of our revised NDC will, therefore, be a whole chapter dedicated to ocean climate action and blue carbon as nature-based solutions to climate change.

“Seychelles already protects 26% of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), an area the size of Germany, and we will increase it to 30% next year, meeting the 30-by-30 target of protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030 a decade early,” said President Faure.

He also stressed and explained the projected transformational change expected in line with Seychelles’ renewables.

“Seychelles will aim for a transformational change from a target of 15% renewables by 2030 in its current NDC to a strategy for 100% in keeping with theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) special report on global warming of 1.5° Celsius. We will build institutional capacity to achieve energy self-sufficiency and security through renewable energy, energy efficiency and green transport,” said President Faure.

Aside from the summit, the President on the same day also attended the high-level side-event hosted by United States President Donald Trump entitled: ‘Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom’ also held at the United Nations headquarters.