STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT KHALTMAAGIIN BATTULGA, PRESIDENT OF MONGOLIA AT THE CLIMATE AMBITION SUMMIT
President of Mongolia Khaltmaagiin Battulga took part, December 12th, 2020, in the Climate Ambition Summit, on the occasion of the Fifth Anniversary of the adoption of the Paris Agreement.
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I wish to extend my sincere appreciation to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Emmanuel Macron for initiating and organizing this summit in these difficult times of global pandemic.
As the pandemic is sweeping all over the world, there is a need to call more attention to climate change and take decisive and strong action to mitigate its negative impacts.
Developing solutions to combat and overcome climate change is the most pressing issue for Mongolia owing to its harsh continental weather and nomadic pastoralism.
Therefore, the Government of Mongolia approved its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which incorporates targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions identifying risks of all the sectors of the economy and all the walks of life and submitted the NDC to the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. In this document, the mitigation target was re-calculated from 14% to 22.7% in total national greenhouse emissions. Moreover, it is my great pleasure to announce that it is possible to further increase our commitment to 27.2%.
Mongolia developed a specific action plan to achieve its “determined contribution” target and is planning to carry out concrete measures. The implementation of some measures has been started given the time constraints. Namely, all the feasibility studies on the construction of a 1,000 km irrigation pipeline to the Gobi region, which is under threat of rapid desertification due to climate change, have been completed and it is ready to start the construction.
We, Mongols, are ready to mobilize all our resources because efforts and diligence from the whole of humanity is crucial to save Mother Earth, slow the pace of global warming and combat adverse effects of climate change.
Thank you for your attention.