Statement by His Excellency Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah
Second Deputy of the Prime Minister and Minister of Energy and Industry
The High Level Meeting
Of The 14th Session
Of The
Commission On Sustainable Development
Policies and Priorities
In the Name of God the Compassionate and the Merciful
Mr. Chairman,
Your Excellencies Heads of Delegations,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
The tragic circumstances under which many of the peoples of the developing countries live
due to poverty and absence of the minimum standards of life in dignity call for more efforts by
the international community to realize the Millennium Development Goals and halve poverty by
the year 2015.
Despite the achievements realized in the implementation of the Johannesburg Plan of
Action in many states, the many challenges we face in the fields of energy, industrial
development, air pollution and climate change make it incumbent upon us to act together and
cooperate in order to develop new visions for effective solutions on the short, medium and long
term.
The variations in the priorities of developing and industrial nations, dictated by the
diversity of their economic and social standards are difficulties that aught to be addressed and
debated in an objective a transparent manner.
The priorities of the industrial countries revolve around assured energy supplies while
mitigating further environmental degradation. These priorities prompted the industrial nations to
set quantitative and chronological targets to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels. They
imposed taxes on oil products and continued to support renewable sources of energy.
In the mean time, the priorities of the oil and gas exporting developing countries center on
non- interrupted supply and assured energy products markets, with no use-restriction taxes.
Given the above, it is necessary to pursue dialogue between the developing and industrial
countries to develop an understanding that serves the interests of all parties and achieves the
objectives of sustainable development.
Mr. Chairman,
Faced with these challenges and the discrepancies between different positions,
technological developments play a central role that must be vigorously pursued to develop the
energy resources and provide clean and environmentally sound energy to limit polluting
emissions that contribute to climate change.
We must pursue targeted policies to promote international cooperation to satisfy the needs
of developing countries that lack the adequate energy resources necessary to achieve socioeconomic
development. Meanwhile, all parties must seek to mitigate the adverse consequences
of climate change. They should develop the necessary measures and programs to grapple with
their repercussions in developing countries in general, and Small Island Developing States
(SIDS) in particular.
These challenges will constitute the basis for our work in the next session. We look
forward to more success in the course of next year in developing adequate policy directives to be
presented to the intergovernmental policy coordination meeting scheduled to be held in February
2007.
Mr. Chairman,
Your Excellencies,
In conclusion, allow me to reiterate my country?s commitment to sustainable
development. This is the commitment expressed on repeated occasions by His Royal Highness
the Emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani. His Royal Highness affirmed his support
to all measures aiming at alleviating the suffering of the peoples of the world, and enabling them
to raise their standards of living and realize their development objectives. It is in the spirit of the
commitment of the State of Qatar to contribute to the question of development that we hosted the
Second South Summit in June of 2005. During the Summit, Qatar undertook the initiative to
establish the South Fund for Development and Humanitarian Situations. Qatar also affirmed its
commitment to earmark a share of its GNI for development assistance, of which 15% will be
dedicated to LDC?s as of 2006.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman??
