Parliamentary Meeting on the Occasion of the United Nations
Climate Change Conference
Paris, 5 December 2015
Call for Parliamentary Action on Climate Change
TALKING POINTS
Mr. László Borbély MP
Romanian IPU Group
Ø This year – 2015 - is a year for global action - a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put our world on more peaceful, sustainable and equitable footing. Addis Ababa, New York and now Paris are the locations of three very important global meetings on the universal agenda.
Ø The Climate Summit in Paris is most likely our last chance to limit global warming to 2 degrees. Our goal is therefore an ambitious agreement with binding climate targets and fair international financing.
Ø National parliaments do have an important role to play in the implementation of the future Sustainable Development Goals at the national level, and in the transformation of our economies according to new, sustainable production and consumption patterns, with due regard to the protection of the environment.
Ø For a global inter-parliamentary organization like ours, one way to do it is through a regional approach – and I have in mind the positive results of the Seminar on the SDGs hosted by the Romanian Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest in June 2015.
Ø The IPU must continue to conduct these type of activities because, let’s be honest, the knowledge about the whole set of SDGs and the determination to integrate them in the parliamentary day-to-day work are still lacking. We have examined and promoted them in international and European fora, but information and understanding must reach each and every Member of Parliament, for obvious reasons.
Ø I am strongly in favour to the option of choosing certain Goals as priority Goals for the IPU; they should reflect IPU’s objectives and the areas where IPU can bring added value and can be truly efficient.
Ø Romania is a reliable partner in the field of Sustainable Development and the Romanian Parliament has a very good working relationship with the IPU.
Ø Coming back to the global approach, the participants in the Bucharest seminar recommended the setting up of a parliamentary mechanism to track and evaluate progress so that national and regional experiences can be connected to the developments to the global level and encourage further progress. In my opinion, such mechanism could be further developed to enable the sharing of experience, best practices and lessons learned in implementing the SDGs.
Ø The Parliament of Romania is ready to continue to give its support by hosting a second regional meeting on the SGDs in 2016.
Ø Romania also intends to become a regional hub for parliamentary diplomacy in order to promote at regional level among parliaments the global topics of the UN agenda.
Ø I am confident that the meeting in Paris will provide an opportunity to exchange views, share experiences and identify common strategies to integrate the SDGs in the work of your parliaments, and scale up the resources and political commitment to domesticate this framework.
Ø Parliamentary action may also be required to support regional and even international cooperation, particularly when it comes to facilitating technology transfers, trade, capacity building, and possibly financial assistance to lower income countries.
Ø Finally, let me say a few words about one of the most important innovations of this new agenda. It has to do with the people themselves and how, thanks to social media and other new means of political participation and communication, they will increasingly be involved both in helping chart the course ahead in each country and in providing feedback to decision-makers, including parliamentarians, of course.
Ø We often say that it is the job of parliaments to hold their governments to account. But it is also true that parliaments and each individual MP are themselves accountable to the people. The more the implementation of the SDGs is inclusive of all people the higher the chances of success.
Ø Thus, it will take pro-active action by all concerned- and with you as parliamentarians in the lead.