Speech by President Dilma Rousseff on the occasion of the Plenary Session of United Nations Sustainable Development Summit 2015 – New York, September 27, 2015

Mr. Mogens Lykketoft, President of the Seventieth United Nations General Assembly,

Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Secretary General,

Distinguished Heads of State and Government participating in the United Nations Conference on the Post-2015 Development Agenda,

Distinguished delegates,

Ladies and gentlemen,

The 2030 Agenda outlines the future we want.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals reaffirm the basic tenet of Rio+20: it is possible to grow, include, preserve and protect.

They establish genuinely universal goals, highlight the need for cooperation among peoples and point towards a common path for humanity.

This innovative Agenda requires global solidarity, determination from each one of us, and a commitment to confronting climate change, overcoming poverty and creating opportunities for all.

We must strengthen the Climate Convention, while fully implementing its provisions and respecting its principles. Our obligations should be ambitious and consistent with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.

The Paris Conference is a unique opportunity for us to shape a common response to the global challenge of climate change.

Brazil has been making great efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions without compromising our social and economic development.

To that end, we continue to diversify the renewable sources in our energy mix, which is among the cleanest in the world.

We are investing in low-carbon farming.

We have reduced deforestation in the Amazon rainforest by 82%.

Rest assured that we will continue to undertake ambitious actions.

I therefore would like to announce that the contribution of Brazil will be a reduction of 37% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Our ambition is to reach a reduction of 43% by 2030. The base year in both cases is 2005.

In this context, Brazil intends to adopt the following measures by 2030:

Regarding agriculture, livestock and the use of land:

1st – eliminating illegal deforestation;

2nd – restoring and reforesting 12 million hectares;

3rd - recovering 15 million hectares of degraded pastures; and

4th - creating 5 million hectares of integrated crop-livestock-forest area.

Concerning energy, our objectives are:

1st – a ratio of 45% of renewable sources in our total energy mix. It should be noted that the global average is only 13%;

2nd – a proportion of 66% of hydropower in our electricity generation output;

3rd - a share of 23% of renewable sources, including wind, solar and biomass power, in our electricity output;

4th – an increase of 10% in our electricity efficiency rate; and

5th – a proportion of 16% of ethanol fuel and other sugarcane-derived biomass sources in our total energy mix.

In concluding, the necessary adaptation measures undertaken to meet the challenge of climate change are accompanied by significant changes in the use of land and forests as well as in agriculture, energy, and production and consumption patterns.

Brazil is thus contributing decisively to the global efforts towards implementing the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has established the limit of no more than 2º Celsius for global warming in this century.

Brazil is one of the few developing countries to commit to an absolute goal for emissions reduction. In spite of having one the world’s largest populations and GDPs our goals are just as ambitious, if not more so, than those set by developed countries.

Our INDC takes into account mitigation and adaptation initiatives, as well as specific needs regarding financing, technology transfer and capacity building.

It includes actions that increase the resilience of the environment and reduce the risks associated to the negative effects of climate change on the poor and more vulnerable segments of the population. There is a special emphasis on gender issues and workers’ rights, as well as "quilombolas", indigenous and other traditional communities.

We recognize the importance of South-South Cooperation in global efforts to combat climate change.

We must underscore that the social and inclusive dimensions are an essential aspect of these efforts. Since 2003, social policies and conditional cash transfer programs have helped lift over 36 million people out of extreme poverty. Last year Brazil graduated from the World Hunger Map.

Thanks to minimum wage growth policies, the purchasing power of the population has increased.

We have made major progress with regard to housing programs, access to basic education, public health services and gender equality. We achieved these results because we understood that poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon.

In the transition to a low-carbon economy, it is important to secure dignified and fair conditions for workers. Sustainable development requires us to commit to the promotion of decent work and the generation of quality jobs and opportunities.

This is the future we want. This is the future we are building.

The efforts to eradicate poverty and promote development must be collective and global.

In my country we know that the end of poverty is only the beginning of a long journey.

Thank you.