NEW YORK, 24 september 2022 (TATOLI) – The President of the Republic José Ramos Horta delivered a keynote remark at the g7+ forum in New York, where he raised the effects of energy consumption on the environment.
Horta said the environmental damage caused by fossil fuel and also by industrial agricultural production, cattle farming, sugar cane industries, tourism industry, etc: “I am a signatory, along with over 100 other Nobel Prize recipients of a letter supporting a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
“The fact is that the majority of the ecological pressure from excess consumption in rich nations is outsourced to poorer nations. Since independence Timor-Leste has faced two decades of pressure in various forms to foresee its sovereign development in favor of further being relegated as an outsourced supplier of the developed world’s energy and industrial needs,” Horta said in his speech, in New York, on friday (23/09.
He said everyone is well aware that the planet is literally and metaphorically burning: massive wildfires; record temperatures; sustained, life-threatening high heat events and droughts; record floods; intensified tropical storms; species under threat of extinction.
Horta said there is an unarguable scientific consensus that the world has already crossed tipping points that will take a millennium (40 generations) or more to restore.
The head of state emphasized that the environmental crisis is caused by everyone equally. Low-income countries remain well within their fair share of planetary energy and resource use: “The basic fact is, whilst we need to reduce overall global energy and resource use, low-income countries need to increase their energy.”
“But, whilst I am well aware of this global catastrophe, I am at the same time the President of a country totally funded by receipts from oil and gas. Our Sovereign Wealth Fund has a current balance of around US$18 billion which is derived from the Bayu Undan oil and gas field. The current level of withdrawal is expected to be exhausted by the first years of the coming decade,” he said.
He said during his recent state visit to Australia, a journalist posed a very legitimate question related to Timor-Leste’s determination to develop the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field located on the continental shelf between Timor-Leste and Australia: “I was asked how do we weigh up the economic benefits for our impoverished people against environmental impact.”
“For the last two decades, we have been in either dispute or negotiation with developers and with our giant neighbor, Australia, concerning the development of the Greater Sunrise. It is estimated worth is somewhere between US$50 and US$75 billion. The estimated lifespan of the field is approximately 40 years.
“The essential tension in the development of Greater Sunrise field is whether the pipeline that transports the gas to the processing facility will be to Darwin or to our shores which is our obvious expectation as there would be much greater downstream activities, economic and employment benefits to our people.
“To an entirely fair question, I responded, off the cuff, it is not us, Timorese, and our brothers and sisters countries from the development periphery that has brought civilization to the brink of this climatic calamity. It is countries such as ours that have to face the continual effects of this calamity,” said Horta
He said Timor-Leste’s C02 emission can be estimated at 0,0000000000000000000000001.
Related News:https://en.tatoli.tl/2022/09/21/pr-horta-leaves-timor-leste-for-new-york-to-deliver-a-speech-at-the-un/15/
Journalist: Filomeno Martins
Editor: Nelia Borges
