AOSIS Intervention on Implementation in the Sea Level Rise Declaration
24 June 2026
Delivered by HE Odo Tevi, Permanent Representative of Vanuatu
Key Points
- Supports current text as establishing practical, step-wise follow-up on sea level rise.
- Stresses that ongoing, biennial review and one high-level meeting are minimum implementation architecture.
- Rejects using UN80 revitalization as excuse for inaction; urges adoption of follow-up paragraph.
I have the honour to speak on behalf of AOSIS, and I thank the co-facilitators and your teams for your tremendous efforts to get us to this point. I would like to offer some reflections on behalf of AOSIS on follow-up and implementation of the Declaration. We fully support the approach reflected in para 23 of your Rev-2 text. We consider it a practical, step-wise process that keeps sea level rise on the agenda of the General Assembly and provides for review of our collective progress over time.
A declaration without follow-up is a declaration that risks being forgotten. Sea level rise does not pause once this meeting concludes; it accelerates. A one-time political statement, however strong, cannot answer a challenge that unfolds over decades. What is required is a mechanism that allows the international community to return to this issue, to take stock of what has been done, and to identify what remains to be done. That is what the follow-up paragraph provides.
We want to be clear about the nature of what is proposed, because this is a measured, proportionate way forward. It keeps sea level rise on the agenda of the Assembly, but not every year. It provides for reporting and review on a biennial basis. It asks the Secretary-General for a single report. And it provides for one further high-level meeting, before the end of the eighty- fifth session, to review progress. This is not an open-ended commitment to a perpetual process; it is the minimum architecture needed to ensure this Declaration is implemented and not shelved. The proposed way forward is, as many have called for, anchored in existing General Assembly processes and it expressly takes into account the revitalization of the work of the Assembly.
We also wish to address directly the suggestion that the revitalization of the work of the United Nations under the UN80 process counsels against any new mandate here. With respect, we do not accept that reading. The revitalization agenda calls for the rational and efficient use of mandates; it does not impose a bar on new ones where they are warranted. To treat every reform initiative as a prohibition on action would be to turn an exercise in effectiveness into an excuse for inaction. For small island developing States, the ability to establish a follow-up on this issue matters profoundly to our members.
A High-Level Meeting on sea level rise that left no means of following up on its own outcome would fall short of what this moment demands. We urge delegations to support this paragraph, so that this Declaration is not the end of the conversation but the foundation for sustained international action on sea level rise.
