EU Presidency Statement - Protection of global climate for present and future generations of mankind

Mr. President,

I have the honor to take the floor on behalf of the European Union to explain our vote on operative paragraph 5 of the draft resolution entitled "Protection of global climate for present and future generations of mankind". The Acceding Countries, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia align themselves with this statement.

The EU has voted in favor of this paragraph since it reaffirms the need to fund the provisions for the sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its subsidiary bodies, in the regular budget of the United Nations for the biennium 2004-2005.

Climate change is a global challenge closely linked to other global issues at the heart of the United Nation's mission, such as environmental protection, sustainable development and poverty eradication Therefore, the Convention needs to remain closely linked, politically and institutionally, to the United Nations.

The 47th General Assembly established this link in 1992 in its resolution on protection of global climate. Since then, there has always been strong demand from the General Assembly to include the conferences of the Parties to the Convention, including the conferences of its subsidiary bodies, in the overall conference calendar. The inclusion should be interpreted to cover conference-servicing costs from the UN regular budget, since this has been standard procedure and has not been changed expressly by any General Assembly resolution.

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