Dear friends, it is an enormous pleasure to be here with some of the members of Generation Zero representing the very important leadership that youth around the world is providing to make sure that we are able to reach our central objective: not to have more than 1.5 degrees of increasing temperature at the end of the century. The international community , and especially the scientific community, has been very clear that to reach this goal we absolutely need to have carbon neutrality by 2050. I鈥檓 extremely grateful to the leadership of New Zealand in this regard and extremely grateful to the leadership to the youth in New Zealand in this regard.
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I鈥檓 confident that youth around the world will be able to convey to their governments a very clear message which is the message that I would like to convey here from the Pacific.
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First, shift taxes from salaries to carbon. We must tax pollution not people.
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Second stop subsidies to fossil fuels. Taxpayers鈥 money should not be used to boost hurricanes, to spread drought and heatwaves, to bleach corals or to melt glaciers.
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Finally, stop the construction of new coal plants by 2020. We want a green economy not a grey economy in the world.
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It is very important that around the world young people, civil society and those that in the business community have understood that the green economy is the economy of the future and the grey economy has no future, it鈥檚 very important that you convince governments that they must act because there鈥檚 still a lot of resistance.
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I went to Katowice not one, but three times, and I felt that resistance. Governments are still afraid to move forward. They feel the costs of climate action forgetting that the costs of inaction are much bigger than any costs of climate action. It鈥檚 very good to see 鈥 as we know, that nature does not negotiate - it鈥檚 very good to see youth in the frontline and I鈥檓 delighted to be with you here today and to learn from you, what you want us to do.
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Thank you very much for your presence and it鈥檚 very important that your own government recognizes you鈥檙e a very important influence in what has been the exemplary New Zealand leadership in this regard.