Prime Minister Hon. James Marape has requested the United Nations secretariat to assist forest nations like Papua New Guinea advocate stronger on forest preservation and climate financing to assist these nations in their development aspirations.
The Prime Minister put the special request to United Nations Secretary-General Antoinio Guterres in a bilateral meeting on the margins of the UN General Assembly, soon after PM Marape participated in the high-level assembly debate where he delivered PNG country statement.
Prime Minister Marape brought up the matter of Papua New Guinea’s forest, which as part of the island of New Guinea, is the third largest in the world after Amazon and Congo.
He highlighted the need for the assistance of the United Nations to mobilise support for the preservation of these forests through financing as compensation so people could be assisted with these financing to meet their development needs and aspirations.
Just prior to the meeting, the Prime Minister highlighted the same thing in his address to the general assembly where described these forests as “lungs of earth, needing preservation and called for collective action in this area.
“I remind the world. The forest of PNG is a global asset, and it must be preserved at a price transferable to improve the lives of my forests people. The conservation on climate change mitigation cannot be had without a conversation on forest preservation; they are the two sides to the same coin,” PM Marape had said in his address to the assembly.
In the meeting with Guterres, the Prime Minister touched on his reasons for with- drawing PNG from this year’s UN conference on climate change, COP29, which will be held in November in Azerbaijan.
“We are thinking of abstaining from COP29 because I feel there is silence in these conferences on forest conservation,” he said.
However, Mr Guterres encouraged that if PNG is going to give COP29 a miss, it must consider attending COP30 in Brazil because of the presentation of the alliance of the rainforest nations – Brazil, Congo, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea – which would have a stronger voice in pushing for a more effective global commitment in these matters.
Prime Minister Marape also informed the Secretary-General of PNG’s intention to present to the United Nations its scorecard, a progressive report on its development status in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
The Prime Minister ended the meeting with Mr Guterres by thanking him on UN’s continued efforts in the peace process on Bougainville and also generally in the country on national and subnational levels.
A piece of land is being mobilized in Port Moresby for the construction of the UN mission in PNG so the United Nations could have a visible presence in PNG, PM Marape assured.