FCO Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific Mark Field visited Poland on 24-25 January to follow up on the 3rd annual UK-Poland Inter-Governmental Consultations, held in London in December.

The visit also follows the recent COP24 climate conference in Katowice last month, which Minister Field attended, and allowed for an exchange of views on key issues across the Asia-Pacific region, as well as further strengthening of relations between the UK and Poland.

While in Poland Minister Field met key Polish figures including Deputy Foreign Minister Maciej Lang, Deputy Minister for the Environment Slawomir Mazurek and Minister for Strategic Energy Infrastructure Piotr Naimski.

Minister for Asia and the Pacific Mark Field said:

It is evident that relations between the United Kingdom and Poland are as strong as ever, with a huge amount of bilateral work taking place between our two countries. We continued discussions on important joint initiatives such as our clean growth partnership, much of which resulted from the hugely productive Inter-Governmental Consultations, which the Prime Minister hosted in London in December.

Ours is a very fruitful partnership, and that is why it is important for me to be back in Poland so soon after my last visit in December for COP24 in Katowice. The UK and Poland have a long shared history and we continue to work closely together on some of the most pressing issues facing our two countries, including through NATO and the UN Security Council.

The Minister also met representatives of UK and Polish businesses working in green technology and energy.

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Minister Field visits Poland to follow up on the 3rd annual UK-Poland Inter-Governmental Consultations

Mr. President, first of all may I join the thanks in thanking you for scheduling this debate today and indeed, giving this Council the opportunity to further consider the threat posed to international peace and security by climate change. Dominican Republic’s own experience has encouraged you to be a powerful advocate for this issue and a leader in this field. And I’m sure I speak for all that we look forward to your remarks later in the debate.

I also wish to thank all the briefers. But I was particularly struck by the contribution of Lindsay Getschel- by drawing attention to the challenge of climate change, by the importance of consideration of the youth. All countries should not just acknowledge that we should engage youth, we should involve youth in finding the solutions. And certainly Lindsay, from my government’s perspective and I’m sure I speak for many in this room and beyond, I certainly give that commitment because it is important we work together to find common solutions and the youth have an important role to play.

This is also an incredibly important issue for the United Kingdom. Indeed we were the first country to raise this issue on the Council back in 2007. We are particularly concerned for Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries, including almost 60% of our fellow Commonwealth members which face an existential threat from climate change and associated natural disasters.

Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo mentioned the devastation of Hurricane Irma in 2017. I too visited the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricane Irma where both the devastation but more importantly the determination of the people left a deep and lasting impression on me.

Our Prime Minister Mrs May has said there is a clear moral imperative for developed economies to help those who stand to lose most from the consequences of man-made climate change Through our International Climate Finance Fund, we are supporting cleaner economic growth and have helped over 21 million people prepare for the risk of increased droughts and floods. Between 2016 and 2020, we pledged to provide at least 7 billion dollars of funding to the fund and we aim for a balance in our adaptation and mitigation spend.

We have also sought to strengthen our work within the Caribbean region to build resilience through bringing together resources, capabilities, assets and expertise to show a collaborative and strengthened response to the challenge posed by extreme weather events.

Mr President, we all acknowledge climate change is not an abstract theoretical risk. It is real. it is happening now. Severe weather events that used to happen “once in a century” now occur two or three times a decade. Sometimes more often. They impact on essential resources, and drive people from their homes. They threaten sustainable development, including our ability to meet the SDGs, and trade. And they exacerbate conflict and instability.

Indeed the situation is much graver than previously thought. Research by the UK’s Independent Climate Change Committee in collaboration with the China Expert Panel on Climate recently concluded that we have significantly underestimated the social and indeed the economic risk from climate change.

And of course this risk threatens us all. So it’s important we must all contribute to the solution including through discussions such as the important one we are having now.

In Paris in 2015 the international community rallied together to find a shared solution to this shared problem. As the British Prime Minister has said, the Paris Agreement is a vital pillar of the rules-based international system. Now we must accelerate global action to meet the commitments we have made. And we must heed the IPCC’s call to increase our ambition.This includes through our existing partnerships. For example last April, the Commonwealth Heads of Government reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement and pursuing efforts to limit the increase in global average temperatures to 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels and I to pay tribute to Poland’s leadership at the COP 24.

In that vein, we commend strongly the Secretary General’s efforts to refocus the United Nations on the urgent need to address climate change. In our view the UN needs to enhance its approach to climate security in three important ways.

First, on information sharing: we must make better use of the climate-risk data available in the private sector and indeed importantly, in civil society; and we must integrate that data into decision making, right across the UN system.

Secondly, we need to consider all risks, and that includes climate-related risks and in a holistic way and when planning and implementing solutions to peace and security issues.

And as mentioned by the Foreign Minister of Germany Heiko Maas, the Council has started to reflect on this in recent resolutions, particularly. I agree with him on the issue of Lake Chad, Somalia, the Sahel, Mali and Darfur.

Of course, the task now is to have effective implementation and integration into our development, peacebuilding, and humanitarian work.The UK welcomes the piloting of a mini-mechanism to ensure information is available to UN reporting, but it should explore ways to go further for example by improving the coordination and integration of UN Agencies and Missions that manage climate-related security risks on the ground.

Finally Mr President, we must invest in resilience. The UK will lead efforts on resilience ahead of the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit this year, collaborating with a range of actors, to launch what we hope to be genuinely transformational actions.

And again Lindsey I say to you, your suggestions I’m sure have caused us all to reflect. And again from a Commonwealth perspective, I have the opportunity to host Youth Ambassadors from the Commonwealth in London next week and I will certainly be reflecting very strongly on your suggestions and recommendations.

Mr President, in economic terms alone this makes sense. Investing in preparedness to respond will on average halve, yes that’s halve, the cost of deploying humanitarian aid in the wake of a disaster. And it can also speed up crisis response by up to two weeks.

Resilience also presents a huge opportunity to support employment, spread prosperity which of course accelerates development and ultimately, enhances security.

Through the UK -led Centre for Global Disaster Protection. We are working with developing countries to increase their preparedness and indeed resilience to climate change and natural disasters.

Mr President in conclusion, there is no doubt that climate-related security challenges are real. They are here. They are now. We must work together to ensure the United Nations system is able to holistically consider climate risks in decision making and most importantly, integrate them into mission planning and ultimately, into implementation.

Thank you.

Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and welcome. I’m delighted that we’re working very closely with many in this room. But in hosting this event today, in particular, paying tribute to our close cooperation with both Germany and Peru and colleagues across the world on the important agenda of Women, Peace and Security both through the informal Experts Group and in the Security Council. So it’s an immense pleasure to be co-hosting this Arria meeting today. And thank you, Foreign Minister, for your introductory remarks.

As we’ve heard from the Foreign Minister, next year will mark the 20th anniversary of when the UN Security Council resolution 1325 was passed. It was a landmark resolution. It set the course for the agenda that we all meet for today on Women, Peace and Security at the UN. If 1325 sets out the destination, then the national action plans are the means of getting there – providing country specific, tangible strategies that can drive public and political action, and drive the important priority of gender equality and most importantly lasting peace. In countries suffering the effects of unresolved conflicts, the voices of women can make a real difference. Actually let’s change that. They do make a real difference. Survivors and grassroots organisations need to be allowed better connections with national politics and to be able to contribute directly to building peace. That cannot in any sense be ignored.

Five years ago, your excellencies, ladies and gentlemen there was not a single National Action Plan in the MENA region. Today we can reflect and I am pleased to say there are four: in Iraq, in Jordan, in Tunisia and in the occupied Palestinian territories. And they will soon be joined by Lebanon. However the unresolved conflicts across the MENA region continue to demonstrate the chronic challenges of implementing the WPS agenda in conflict settings. As we heard from Heiko, we have a humanitarian crisis in the MENA region. We can look to Yemen’s protracted conflict and Syria. Absence of political stability in Libya and yes the legacy of the awful legacy of Daesh atrocities in Iraq. I also visited Mosul. I visited Iraq together with Special Representative of the Secretary-General Pramila Patten and went to Mosul and heard first-hand about the suffering of minority communities – particularly Christians and the Yazidis. And I had the honour last week to host Nadia Murad in London, where I heard directly about the sterling work she was doing. And not only having endured the atrocities of this despicable organization -that hijacks a noble faith- Daesh, not just surviving it but then having the courage to become an advocate. And I am sure we all recognise and pay tribute to her efforts which were rightly recognised through the award of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Your Excellencies, when we look at what’s happening across the MENA region – directly or indirectly increase sexual and gender based violence. We’ve seen that it disproportionately affects women and girls and it creates barriers to their full participation. Therefore National Action Plans need to address the diversity of the countries and the regions they serve. Understanding the immense complexities and most importantly addressing these challenges. Under our own National Action Plan, the United Kingdom has prioritised support to key countries including Iraq, Syria and Libya. And implementing these National Action Plans requires a threefold approach. The first: is state level support and we are pleased to be funding UN Women to support the implementation of the Jordanian National Action Plan through our Conflict, Stability and Security fund. The government endorsed plan will integrate a gender based approach towards women’s participation in prevention and protection processes as well as importantly in peace building. The second aspect, again as the Foreign Minister mentioned, is civil society. Women-led groups are at the forefront of efforts to build peace across the MENA region, and they must be rightly recognised but also importantly they must be protected. That is why we are helping to build the capacity of civil society organisations in Iraq through the Women’s Peace and humanitarian fund and have also supported women’s organizations in Libya and indeed in Yemen.

The final crucial aspect relates to the international community – that is all of us. Our collective, collaborative shared responsibility to provide technical, financial and logistical support to governments and civil society organisations, in order to achieve our shared vision and goals on inclusivity on the agenda that is women peace and security. For our part, the United Kingdom pledges to continue to support this agenda in every which way we can, including through our own National Action Plan. In the Security Council, we must do more to ensure the existing Women, Peace and Security framework is further implemented more meaningfully. The informal Experts Group is an important forum to monitor and indeed encourage implementation but we must also continue to hear directly from civil society briefers, from the United Nations who can illustrate progress and most importantly highlight areas where we must continue to apply our collective efforts and support.

In conclusion and mindful once again of next year’s anniversary, I urge all of us together today to join in implementing and developing further National Action Plans in full consultation with our civil society partners. So that together we support others to implement theirs. And together we can strengthen our resolve in promoting the Women, Peace and Security agenda in all our work – in both conflict and stability and in building peace. Thank you.

The dispute had created tensions for nearly three decades, and had been an obstacle to Macedonian membership of NATO and the EU. We look forward to full implementation of the deal.

Foreign Secretary said:

The UK congratulates Greece’s Parliament for successfully ratifying the Prespes Agreement. This is an historic moment bringing a decades-old dispute close to an end. Today’s vote paves the way to the full implementation of the Agreement, which has the full support of the UK.

Both countries have demonstrated great courage and the will to work together to affect real change. The deal brings the prospect of increased stability and prosperity to the wider region. We look forward to continued working with two trusted allies in the interests of European security.

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Published 25 January 2019