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Office of the President of The Republic of Seychelles

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Climate Action Summit 2019: Seychelles’ commits to Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris Agreement

United Nations Headquarters, New York: The President of the Republic, Mr. Danny Faure attended the official opening of the United Nations 2019 Climate Action Summit convened by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres held this morning.  

The Summit convened under the theme ‘Climate Action Summit 2019: A Race We Can Win. A Race We Must Win’ focused on mobilizing political and economic energy at the highest levels focused for the advancement of climate action. This will in return enable the further implementation of goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

Addressing the Assembly, President Faure shared some of the key National efforts being undertaken by Seychelles in line with the National Determined Contributions (NDC) as well as other national resilience strategies contributing towards environment protection as a large ocean state.

“We have an exclusive economic zone of 1.4 million square kilometres which is 3,000 times the size of our islands. The highlights of our revised NDC will, therefore, be a whole chapter dedicated to ocean climate action and blue carbon as nature-based solutions to climate change.

Seychelles already protects 26% of its EEZ, an area the size of Germany, and we will increase it to 30% next year, meeting the 30-by-30 target of protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030 a decade early.”

President Faure also stressed and explained the projected transformational change expected inline with Seychelles’ renewables.

“Seychelles will aim for a transformational change from a target of 15% renewables by 2030 in its current NDC to a strategy for 100% in keeping with the IPPC’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 Celsius. We will build institutional capacity to achieve energy self-sufficiency and security through renewable energy, energy efficiency and green transport” said President Faure.

Aside from the Summit, the President on the same day also attended the High-level side-event hosted by United States President Mr Donald Trump entitled: “Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom also held at the UNHQ.