Senator the Honourable Dennis Moses, Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, participated in high level meetings throughout the day, in the margins of the high-level segment of the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations Headquarters in New York.
Minister Moses began the morning at the annual Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (CELAC), a regional forum comprising thirty-three countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Ministers of Foreign Affairs of CELAC meet regularly to discuss matters of foreign policy and political cooperation in support of regional integration programmes. In his address to the meeting, Minister Moses stressed, among other things, the importance of the new 2030 development agenda to Trinidad and Tobago, and called for the implementation of the agenda to give due priority to the concerns of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) on issues such as on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), climate change, and the needs of marginalized groups.
Minister Moses then participated in the Ministerial Meeting of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), a coalition of small island and low lying States particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, of which Trinidad and Tobago is a founding and active member. Discussions focused on preparations for the upcoming 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to take place in Paris, France, in December, 2015. At the Paris Climate Change Conference, world leaders are expected to agree on a new climate change agreement to limit global climate change emissions from all countries and avert dangerous climate change in the long term. Minister Moses addressed fellow AOSIS Ministers on issues critical to the group highlighting, in particular, Loss and Damage as an essential element of a truly credible climate agreement which should include financial and other material forms of assistance and compensation for the most vulnerable countries. This has been a long standing position of AOSIS Member States which are expected to experience socio-economic and ecosystem losses as a result of global warming.
Foreign Ministers of the Group of 77 and China also met throughout the day to discuss and adopt a Ministerial Declaration to be issued on behalf of all members of the group of 134 developing countries. In the Declaration, Ministers addressed issues of importance to developing countries including implementation of the 2030 global Sustainable Development Agenda, poverty eradication and other key matters of high political significance, such as the need to end the application of unilateral economic sanctions against developing countries. Minister Moses encouraged the Group of 77 and China to maintain its solidarity in the coming months in the context of negotiations for a new global climate change agreement, and expressed the view that the Group, under the leadership of South Africa, would be in a good position to positively influence the outcome of those discussions.
Minister Moses also attended the annual meeting of Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers in which preparations for the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM), to take place in Malta, in November 2015, were discussed. Trinidad and Tobago is a former Chair of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, having hosted the CHOGM in 2009.
