Statement by SAARC Heads of Missions in New York on Climate Change

We the Permanent Representatives of the SAARC countries to the United Nations in New York express our deepest concern about global climate change and its unfolding impact on the lives and livelihood of our people in the South Asia Region, which is home to 1.5 billion people.

We are acutely conscious that we are a region most vulnerable to climate change. The SAARC Region is facing the severe threats from sea-level rise, deforestation, forest degradation, soil erosion, loss of crop diversity and productivity, siltation, droughts, storms, cyclones, unseasonal rains, floods, glacier-melt and resultant glacial lake outbursts, and urban pollution. We have therefore adopted "Climate Change" as the key theme of Sixteenth SAARC Summit to be held in Thimphu, Bhutan in April next year. It is our firm commitment that the SAARC, as it seeks to reach the goal of sustainable development, should restore harmony with nature, drawing on ancient South Asian cultural values and traditions of environmental responsibility and sustainability.

We affirm the SAARC view that every person on this planet must have an equal share of the planetary atmospheric space. Any effort at addressing climate change should take into account historical responsibility, per capita emissions and respective country capabilities. There must be commitment in accordance with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) principles and Bali Action Plan, in particular, those on equity and common but differentiated responsibilities. As the developing world seeks to develop, assistance must be made available by those with capacity, including with modern and appropriate technology and necessary financing. We must all deal with climate change, but those who were left behind in the race to develop must be assisted to realise their development aspirations by those who achieved development at the expense of the environment and the carbon space of those excluded.

We expect a concrete and an action oriented outcome in Copenhagen at the COP-15 with a view to enabling the full, effective and sustained implementation of the commitments under the UNFCCC, including that of the Kyoto Protocol and the Bali Action Plan. 

The Permanent Representatives of the SAARC countries

The United Nations in New York

02nd December 2009