Remarks by a representative of the Russian delegation during the 10th session of the UNGA Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals on issues of economic growth, industrialization, infrastructure and energy
Distinguished Mr. Co-Chair,
We are grateful to the distinguished Co-Chairs for devoting separate sections of their document to the issues of economic growth, industrialization, infrastructure and energy. Each of these themes has a fundamental importance in the context of sustainable development.
We would like to express our gratitude to the distinguished Permanent Representative of Ethiopia for his statement on behalf of the Group of friends of inclusive and sustainable industrial development, which we support. We stand for a separate Goal on sustainable industrialization with a focus on advanced knowledge-intensive, resource-effective, economically viable and environmentally sound technologies as well as investing in enhanced human capacity and creating decent jobs while adhering to the modern social protection standards.
We share the view that infrastructure has its own self-contained value in the context of sustainable development. Combined with sustainable industrialization it can promote a balanced and responsible approach to economic, social and technological development on the basis of true partnership and cooperation as well as creation and mutually beneficial exchange of real material assets as apposed to irresponsible inflating of speculative financial markets. Outcomes of our discussions on infrastructure, apart from specifying its different kinds, should also reflect a holistic approach to their development as elements of a single system and highlight emerging synergy effects. It is important to emphasize the necessity to build up, improve, ensure access to and maintain material and other infrastructure for enhancing and full realization of capacities of regions, countries, communities and individuals.
As we speak about infrastructure, we also support mentioning transport in sub-item (a) of focus area 10 as well as in sub-item (b) of focus area 13. At the same time, in our view, absence of a separate section on transport is a significant shortcoming. With the globalization and international economic cooperation evolving, transport plays a key role in achieving sustainable development. Transport and related infrastructure have trans-boundary nature, require policy coherence among many states and depend on large-scale investments. We believe that more detailed consideration of transport-related issues as a separate set would contribute to adequate mobilization of efforts for sustainable development.
Energy constitutes one of the most important and self-contained elements of the future Sustainable Development Goals.
At the same time, we believe that in focus area 7 the proposed formulation on access to “energy resources for all” needs to be corrected, since it doesn’t correspond to the approach adopted in the United Nations. One should rather speak of access to energy sources and services.
Sub-items (с), (е) и (g) also need to be corrected.
Sub-item (c). An optimal energy mix should be achieved through increasing the share of providing incentives for economically viable and environmentally sound fuels including renewable energy sources.
Sub-item (е). Phasing-out subsidies should be implemented with regard to economically and environmentally unreasonable types of energy, not exclusively fossil fuels as such.
Sub-item (g). Mobilization of financial resources, apart from infrastructure, should also encompass productive capacities.
Thank you.
