Addressing the high-level meeting of the council security of the UN carried out by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Giorgos Gerapetritis.

As he mentioned, Greece will take the initiative, setting the tripartite climate-peace-security, pointing out that in recent years, the Mediterranean has evolved into the focus of climate change.

His statements in more detail Minister of Foreign Affairs:

“There is not a single challenge in the modern world that does not interact with others. The climate crisis threatens food security and both together threaten stability and social cohesion.

There is no single country or region specific challenge. The collapse of the grain initiative in Ukraine threatens the grain chain as a whole, and the rapid melting of Antarctic ice is affecting the planet. And this, while more than 600 million people worldwide are predicted to face the specter of hunger in 2030.

The Mediterranean Sea, the crossroads of 3 continents, is a typical example of the interaction and diffusion of such phenomena. The annual sea temperature is 1.54 °C higher than pre-1990 levels and about 0.4 °C higher than the global average temperature increase.

Rising temperatures have caused serious environmental damage. In recent years, the Mediterranean basin has been the focus of the climate crisis with widespread fires and catastrophic floods. In addition, sea level rise endangers the quantity and quality of fisheries and fish stocks, thereby jeopardizing people’s health and livelihoods.

The mitigation of global warming, the promotion of sustainable tourism and green shipping as well as the reduction of microplastic pollution are included in the agenda of the 9th “Our Ocean Conference” which we will organize in Athens on April 16 and 17. The conference will form the bridge between cop28 and the UN Ocean Conference next year, aiming to produce tangible milestones and credible commitments.

Along the same lines, Greece will take the initiative by making the triple climate-peace-security priority of its candidacy as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the period 2025-26.

However, no conference, no single state intervention can bring about noticeable results. This is reminiscent of Sisyphus eternally and repeatedly rolling a heavy rock up a hill. The complexity and extra-territoriality of the challenges require the collective response of the governments and peoples of the world with an eye to the future.

What we need is a different mindset when it comes to environmental protection and food security. One such cross-cutting policy is the World Health Organization’s “OneHealth” plan, an integrated, unified, holistic approach to balancing and optimizing human, animal, and environmental health.

We need this kind of new vision of global solidarity and intergenerational sustainability. Through ethical and rules-based global governance and fair burden-sharing among states.

This is why we are calling for a global sustainability alliance. We support the proposal for the appointment of a special UN envoy for a sustainable future.

We owe it to future generations from whom we have admittedly already extracted part of their dividends from the environment.

After all, we must not forget: We are not owners of the land, but simple managers of it.”