Dominica: President Sylvanie Burton, led the prominent delegation from the nation to the 79^th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), at New York. The president scheduled the meeting and spoke to the General Assembly on the September 25, 2024.

The session was based on the theme “Leaving no one behind: acting together for the advancement of peace, sustainable development and human dignity for present and future generations.” The global leaders present at the gathering, evaluated the progress achieved over Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

They explored the strategies to address the recent worldwide challenges and review three key documents that aims at building the future development, the ‘Pact of the Future,’ the ‘Declaration on Future Generations,’ and the ‘Global Digital Compact’.

Dominica is moving towards the world’s first climate-resilient country, as appealed by the President on Wednesday at the gathering. Burton appealed to the international community to honour the obligations, that came out as a result of the impact of climate change on Small Island Developing States also known as SIDS.

President Sylvanie Burton stated at the 79^th session of the United Nations General Assembly that they are facing a critical juncture in the human history. She stressed upon the climatic changes and marked them as environmental challenge.

Considering this, Burton remarked that it is a threat to every aspect of life as everybody is aware know that for Dominica, many Small Island Developing States are not distant or abstract issue and have accepted this as a daily reality.

The first president of Indigenous descent from Dominica – Sylvanie Burton further expressed that the global audience of Dominica and other SIDS need to be brace themselves up for the onslaught caused by intensified hurricanes, floods, droughts and other devastating natural calamities.

During her speech, Burton recalled the suffering of Dominica in 2015, at the passage of Tropical Storm ‘Erika’, which wiped out almost 96% of the Gross Domestic Product of the island and then in the year 2017, when Hurricane Maria destroyed more than 225% of Dominica’s GDP.

Burton explained to the audience, this year they saw that Hurricane Beryl swept through the islands such as St. Vincent and The Grenadines, Grenada, Barbados and Jamaica. The President of Dominica noted the tragic occurrences at the regions to state firmly that the time for rhetoric has passed.

She mentioned during her speech that the business will not suffer and they need urgent, bold and decisive actions to be taken, to limit the global warming upto 1.5 degrees Celsius, as per told by the climate experts.

President added further that they must drastically reduce the emissions, should boldly honour financial commitments and build critical resilience infrastructure in regions, especially vulnerable in relation to the climate change.

While addressing the gathering President Burton stated that this is a moral imperative, a matter of the utmost urgency and is also a matter of climate justice. She emphasised that the future depends on the decisions made in the hall.

Notably, in absence of President Sylvanie Burton, Minister Josette Matthew will serve as Acting President of the Commonwealth of Dominica.

President Burton was accompanied by a delegation consisting of: The First Gentleman – Gilbert Burton, Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Business, Trade and Energy – Dr. Vince Henderson, Permanent Representative of Dominica to the United Nations – Philbert Aaron, Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations – Kelver Darroux, Consular – Shelson Peter Anthony and Assistant Superintendent of Police – Valda Powell.