Saludos de Richard Jordan ,
Chair de la 60th DPU/NGO Conference
durante la sesion de apertura en la Asamblea General de NNUU
el 5 de Septiembre del 2007
al evento en Lima-Peru
Richard Jordan, Chair, 60th DPI/NGO Conference
Opening Session: Introductory Remarks
5 September 2007
Madam President of the General Assembly, Madam Deputy Secretary-General, Mr. Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General of the Department of Public Information, Excellencies, Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, and everyone viewing on the internet,
On behalf of all the members of the Planning Committee, and please raise your hands Planning Committee so we can acknowledge you, allow me to welcome you to my hometown, New York City and to the 60th Annual Dpi/NGO Conference.
My name is Richard Jordan, and I grew up just across the East River in Flushing, New York, which hosted the UN General Assembly during the UN’s infancy.
2, 506 of you from 80 countries have registered for this conference. 400 of you are youth.
There are innumerable people to thank: our keynote speakers, Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP and Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, our closing speaker; to private sector corporations such as BMW, Bayer and Nikon; to Mayors across Peru who will be having their own consultation around ours via internet, and many others. The celebratory Journal, “60 Years with the UN: The Journey Continues”, that you have was the work of three members of the Planning Committee, Sherrill Kazan, Jonina Sutton and Margo LaZaro.
Thanks to the UN Correspondents Association, to the 72 student journalists who are here, and to Mr. Gary Fowlie of the UN for his help.
Thanks to DPI staff, Mr. Akasaka, Mr. Raymond Sommereyns, Mr. Ramu Damodaran, Juan Carlos Brandt, Chief of the NGO Unit, and our colleagues from the Unit, Robin, Sol and Zen.
We have a great multigenerational film created by Jun Ren and Public Service Announcements created by the Art College of Design.
The Conference itself coincides with the 800th Anniversary of the birth of the Sufi poet, Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi. It also marks the 35th Anniversary of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the 20th Anniversary of the Brundtland Report, the 15th Anniversary of the Rio Summit, and the 5th Anniversary of Johannesburg.
This conference will help us to disseminate information by all manner of resources – in the future that there may be ways to do this via 3 dimensional technologies. Exciting prospects!
But think in the present – rural development for billions of people in the light of climate change is an unimaginable prospect. Cross-cutting issues of gender, education, human rights, health and migration need to be articulated. Small Island Developing States do not contribute to climate change but are only paid lip service in many negotiations.
We, collectively, need to pause for these three days and consider what are the reasons for our lack of progress. Then, all too soon, it will be 9 AM, the Monday morning after the conference – what will each of us do to help combat this very serious challenge to the entire human-earth community.
This conference will produce a declaration, the draft of which you will find in Conference Rooms 1 and 4. The declaration is on one side of the page, the process is on the reverse.
Our purpose in giving this to you is that by the end of this Conference, we expect that you will have a greater understanding of climate change and its impact. We expect that by that time, we can make a consensus declaration, not a sign-on statement, but a statement we can all agree with, no matter what our NGO’s area of interest and concern. We call it a draft since we want you to have the chance to suggest refinements.
As soon as possible, I urge you to read both the Declaration and the process. Suggestions of 25 words or less can be given either in writing on the cards you will find in the conference rooms, or by giving them in person to one of the members of the three-person drafting group, and I will ask them to stand, Bill Gellermann, Moki Koikoris and Larry Roeder.
The deadline is 6 PM Thursday September 6. We also envision collaboration over the next 12 months to create a report that will be given to the Secretary-General.
This is an experiment in encouraging broad mobilization for disseminating information by our NGO community.
On Friday, at the closing session, I will read the one-page Declaration and hopefully receive your agreement. On the back of that page on Friday will be practical recommendations to help you consider solutions to climate change, as well as room for you to start considering your own action plans.
Let me leave you with one closing image, from the great film “Battleship Potemkin.” If you have seen this movie, you recall the image of the baby carriage careening down the Odessa Steps. If we can draw the analogy, the UN is here to prevent the baby carriage from ever starting on its perilous journey in the first place.
But since the baby carriage of climate change has started its journey, all of us together need to work with the UN in the run-up to the Bali Conference on Climate Change this December to prevent a calamity.
But now, we are in recess until the workshops will be held starting at 1:15 PM.
Thank you and see you this afternoon.
Opening Session: Introductory Remarks
5 September 2007
Madam President of the General Assembly, Madam Deputy Secretary-General, Mr. Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General of the Department of Public Information, Excellencies, Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, and everyone viewing on the internet,
On behalf of all the members of the Planning Committee, and please raise your hands Planning Committee so we can acknowledge you, allow me to welcome you to my hometown, New York City and to the 60th Annual Dpi/NGO Conference.
My name is Richard Jordan, and I grew up just across the East River in Flushing, New York, which hosted the UN General Assembly during the UN’s infancy.
2, 506 of you from 80 countries have registered for this conference. 400 of you are youth.
There are innumerable people to thank: our keynote speakers, Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP and Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, our closing speaker; to private sector corporations such as BMW, Bayer and Nikon; to Mayors across Peru who will be having their own consultation around ours via internet, and many others. The celebratory Journal, “60 Years with the UN: The Journey Continues”, that you have was the work of three members of the Planning Committee, Sherrill Kazan, Jonina Sutton and Margo LaZaro.
Thanks to the UN Correspondents Association, to the 72 student journalists who are here, and to Mr. Gary Fowlie of the UN for his help.
Thanks to DPI staff, Mr. Akasaka, Mr. Raymond Sommereyns, Mr. Ramu Damodaran, Juan Carlos Brandt, Chief of the NGO Unit, and our colleagues from the Unit, Robin, Sol and Zen.
We have a great multigenerational film created by Jun Ren and Public Service Announcements created by the Art College of Design.
The Conference itself coincides with the 800th Anniversary of the birth of the Sufi poet, Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi. It also marks the 35th Anniversary of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the 20th Anniversary of the Brundtland Report, the 15th Anniversary of the Rio Summit, and the 5th Anniversary of Johannesburg.
This conference will help us to disseminate information by all manner of resources – in the future that there may be ways to do this via 3 dimensional technologies. Exciting prospects!
But think in the present – rural development for billions of people in the light of climate change is an unimaginable prospect. Cross-cutting issues of gender, education, human rights, health and migration need to be articulated. Small Island Developing States do not contribute to climate change but are only paid lip service in many negotiations.
We, collectively, need to pause for these three days and consider what are the reasons for our lack of progress. Then, all too soon, it will be 9 AM, the Monday morning after the conference – what will each of us do to help combat this very serious challenge to the entire human-earth community.
This conference will produce a declaration, the draft of which you will find in Conference Rooms 1 and 4. The declaration is on one side of the page, the process is on the reverse.
Our purpose in giving this to you is that by the end of this Conference, we expect that you will have a greater understanding of climate change and its impact. We expect that by that time, we can make a consensus declaration, not a sign-on statement, but a statement we can all agree with, no matter what our NGO’s area of interest and concern. We call it a draft since we want you to have the chance to suggest refinements.
As soon as possible, I urge you to read both the Declaration and the process. Suggestions of 25 words or less can be given either in writing on the cards you will find in the conference rooms, or by giving them in person to one of the members of the three-person drafting group, and I will ask them to stand, Bill Gellermann, Moki Koikoris and Larry Roeder.
The deadline is 6 PM Thursday September 6. We also envision collaboration over the next 12 months to create a report that will be given to the Secretary-General.
This is an experiment in encouraging broad mobilization for disseminating information by our NGO community.
On Friday, at the closing session, I will read the one-page Declaration and hopefully receive your agreement. On the back of that page on Friday will be practical recommendations to help you consider solutions to climate change, as well as room for you to start considering your own action plans.
Let me leave you with one closing image, from the great film “Battleship Potemkin.” If you have seen this movie, you recall the image of the baby carriage careening down the Odessa Steps. If we can draw the analogy, the UN is here to prevent the baby carriage from ever starting on its perilous journey in the first place.
But since the baby carriage of climate change has started its journey, all of us together need to work with the UN in the run-up to the Bali Conference on Climate Change this December to prevent a calamity.
But now, we are in recess until the workshops will be held starting at 1:15 PM.
Thank you and see you this afternoon.
