PRESIDENT WAVEL RAMKALAWAN AT THE WORLD LEADERS SUMMIT

Address by the President of the Republic, Mr Wavel Ramkalawan at the World Leaders Summit during his participation at the UNFCCC’S COP26 World Leaders Summit Climate Change Conference

Mr President, fellow Heads of State and Government, Ladies & Gentlemen,

Seychelles is honoured to be here today and joins everyone in thanking The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the city of Glasgow and its people, for their warm hospitality and for the opportunity to address our generation’s most urgent crisis.

I stand before you fellow leaders of our nations, thus of our planet, neither as a scientist nor as an environmental expert, but as a citizen of our beautiful planet, and more specifically as an island boy facing reality. What I experience in my beautiful islands that most visitors describe as paradise, is the destruction of our environment and livelihood. This, I am sure is what we all see in the various parts of the world we come from. Be it flooding, forest fires, extreme temperatures, delayed rainy seasons, coastal erosion, destruction of wildlife, cutting down of forests, fewer and smaller fish and many more. These, unfortunately, are all part of the destruction process of planet earth and the self-imposed eventual extinction of the planet’s most intelligent species, the human being.

Some of the questions that our young people are asking us, and which should touch our conscience as guardians of this oxygen blessed planet are: Leaders, when are you going to shift from words to action? When are you going to stop making empty promises? When are you going to start taking us and our future seriously? When are you going to show that you actually care? These are damning questions that will confirm our legacy. Forget about mammoth achievements. For one second, we must all look at the mandate bestowed on us and allow our decisions to surpass political considerations and repose on only one agenda: the survival of our planet. Our people want a better life and this starts by being alive.

Seychelles is a victim. So are other Small Island Developing States. We suffer the effects and consequences of industrialization and climate change. We are already gasping for survival. When I hear the expression ‘rise in sea level’, I am scared because it brings home the awareness that my country’s granitic islands will lose all the economic activities happening around the coast and I also realise that the beautiful archipelago of 115 islands that we are today, may be reduced to less than 50 as coral islands disappear, including the Aldabra atoll, our gift to humanity as a world heritage site.

Fellow leaders, we have to act immediately. The environment partnership to save our planet must happen here in Glasgow 2021. Let COP 26 be the determining point. Let the change be a real one. Let the paradigm shift happen. May the industrialised nations understand that they cannot continue polluting without reserve, may those who exploit without thinking of tomorrow stop, may the corrupt poachers of our planet change their ways and may we realise that in this battle to save our planet, we are not in the proverbial same boat, but that we are indeed in the same boat, big, small, rich or poor. The disaster experienced by COVID-19 will be seen as but a breeze. For COVID, the world came together and developed the vaccine. For the protection of our planet, the only vaccine is our sincere commitment and concrete actions. In other words, we have to be honest and action oriented.

I plead with the rich nations to look at the less fortunate ones as equal partners. Can we agree, for example, to put an end to the expression ‘high income earning’ in order to accept a vulnerability index, whereby we will be measured not according to the sacrifice, hard work, proper planning and devotion to serve our people, but on how vulnerable we actually are. Seychelles is considered high income, but overnight it lost 75% of its tourism industry due to COVID 19 and the world stopped for her people. That’s vulnerability.

Can we, the ones who are less responsible for the planet’s destruction, but who on the contrary are doing our utmost, like preserving our limited landmass or EEZ, be helped generously when we are protecting our coastlines, preserving our disappearing islands, managing seagrass meadows larger that Switzerland or fighting IUU fishing activities? Our message is we cannot do it with our limited resources. We need your contribution.

Mr. President, fellow heads of state and government,

We have One mission today: To Save our planet. In order to accomplish the task, we have to come together and act immediately. The partnership is for yesterday. Tomorrow is not an option, for it will be too late. The African proverb resonates loudly in my head, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to far, go together.” Today my ancestors are asking me to tweak this proverb: “If you want to destroy the planet quickly, go alone. If you want to save the planet, let’s go together.”

Our youth and future generations are pleading and are counting on us. Our children, babies and mother nature herself, are telling us loudly and clearly:

No hypocrisy, no make-belief, no empty promises, no hot air.

Rather they want our commitment, steadfastness and resolve.

Let us not disappoint them, but rather, as one human race, let us save our habitat and by doing so, let us save our planet and ensure the survival of our beautiful mother earth.

The time to act is YESTERDAY.

I thank you.

President Ramkalawan meeting other world leaders and key personalities during the first day of the UNFCCC’s COP26 World Leaders Summit Climate Change Conference being held in Glasgow,

President Ramkalawan meets with President of Kenya, Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta and President of Zimbabwe Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa

President Ramkalawan with the Emir of the State of Qatar, His Highness, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani

President Ramkalawan with the President of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, H.E. Mr. Abdulla Shahid

President Ramkalawan meets President of Sri Lanka, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa

President Ramkalawan with Prime Minister of Mauritius, Pravind Jugnauth

President Ramkalawan with other fellow African Heads of States sharing a moment before the opening ceremony of UNFCCC’S COP26 Climate Change Conference ( Madagascar, Comoros and Mauritania)