Mr President, ladies and gentlemen,
We have gathered here today to comprehensively assess the progress in implementing the 2030 Agenda since the last SDG Summit in 2019. It is no less important to exchange specific results regarding the achievement of national goals.
The latest assessments by the UN Secretariat are bleak. Experts are stating that progress is slowing down, and that there has even been a regress on most goals, compared to the pre-pandemic period. Against the backdrop of the expanding external debt and greater debt-servicing costs in developing countries, as well as reduced development assistance volumes from traditional donors, the global SDG funding deficit has reached a record-breaking $4.2 trillion.
In our opinion, this situation has been caused by a number of factors, including US and EU miscalculations in their macroeconomic policy during the pandemic. These miscalculations served to accelerate inflation. One should also mention the unbalanced energy-climate policy stipulating a rapid economic greening process without heeding the social consequences of decarbonisation measures and their economic efficiency, as well as the reluctance of major donors to fulfil their obligations to developing countries.
The policy of illegitimate unilateral anti-Russia sanctions that assumed an unprecedented scale last year exacerbated the negative effect of the above-mentioned factors on the global economy.
Consequently, developing countries, especially the least developed countries, have become a hostage to the situation.
Despite greater instability, it is important not to renounce our commitment to the UN 2030 Agenda and to continue working at all levels. This concerns both the direct achievement of the sustainable development goals and the elimination of structural global economic disproportions that have facilitated the current situation.
Despite the political and economic pressure, Russia remains a responsible international supplier of food, fertilisers and energy. We realise the importance of delivering these vitally important commodities to developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, in the context of ensuring their stable socio-economic development and improving their relevant SDG indicators.
We are convinced that further progress in facilitating food and energy security will largely depend on expanding and strengthening international partnerships, demonopolising related services markets (logistic, financial and insurance) and creating alternative payments and settlements, insurance, transport and logistic systems.
We also actively support global efforts to combat climate change, and we are a full-fledged party to international climate dialogue. For example, we are a party to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC), the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, and we are committed to their goals and tasks. At the same time, we advocate a consistent and equitable green energy conversion, with due account for the national specifics of various countries and socio-economic consequences of applying climate-control measures.
We can achieve this balance only through well-coordinated actions at the international level, and these actions should be in line with the principle of balancing economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable development.
We continue to implement the UN 2030 Agenda at national level. In the past few years, we have approved national planning documents that reflect our movement towards attaining SDG parameters, and they also take account of our national specifics.
We continue to upgrade statistical monitoring tools for achieving these goals. Today, we have attained over 50 percent of global SDG indicators (116 out of 231), and we continue to steadily expand our potential.
We are establishing a national system of sustainable funding. This system has already allowed us to expand private investment volumes for sustainable development projects in this country. As of late 2022, bonds worth 298 billion roubles (over $3 billion) were circulating in the sustainable development sector of the Moscow Exchange.
We have made considerable headway on the SDG 13 climate agenda. We have approved the Low Carbon Development Strategy that aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. We have formulated a regulatory framework of national climate regulation. We have launched a regional experiment to issue greenhouse gas discharge quotas, and we are establishing a national system for monitoring climate-active substances.
We are convinced that it is necessary to resume mutually respectful dialogue between states in order to attain positive global SDG trends between now and 2030. This dialogue should hinge on sovereign equality of all members of the international community.
We are open to cooperation with all states striving to build an equitable global system based on the principles embodied in the UN Charter.
In conclusion, we would like to voice our concern regarding the situation with the Fukushima-1 Nuclear Power Plant. We are expecting Japan to display maximum transparency, while discharging water from the stricken NPP into the Pacific Ocean, and we hope that it will allow neighbouring states to fully access all information of interest to them, including the possibility of obtaining water samples in areas where this water is being discharged.
Thank you.