Honorable colleagues,

I stand before you today, a citizen of Suriname.

Suriname is the greenest country on Earth.

Suriname is home to:

• 550,000 inhabitants
• A wide ethnic and cultural diversity
• 10 Forest dependent tribes
• Over 200 forest dependent communities
• Significant stores of gold, oil and other valuable minerals
• 14.8 million hectares of tropical rainforest, which means 12.9 hectares of forest per capita, and
• 10% of the world's river freshwater.

Suriname is a carbon negative society, storing 11 Gigatons and absorbing more than 8 million tons of forest carbon every year.

This means that with such a service of carbon storage and annual carbon absorption, Suriname is providing a key ecosystem service to the planet and the global community.

However, due to Climate Change, we have now become one of the most vulnerable countries in the world. 

We are being forced to build dikes, revise our water management systems, adapt our building codes to the changed climate and relocate communities.

Despite our best efforts and substantial investments, we are unable to halt the destruction that climate change is bringing upon us.

In Suriname, Sea Level Rise will

• severely damage or destroy our coastal ecosystems, including the majority of our arable land;
• damage or destroy over 40% of our GDP;
• damage or destroy the homes of over 80% of our population;
• damage or destroy our world heritage designated capitol; and
• even endanger the way of life of most of our cultures living along the coastal and river shores.

In Suriname changes in rainfall patterns and rising temperatures are leading to:

• increased health risks and associated costs
• decrease in hydropower production
• reduced access of river pathways.

In short, Climate Change has an enormous negative impact on all aspects of our society as a whole.

Suriname is left to deal with these losses and damages, putting increased pressure on our small, vulnerable national budgets, and endangering our development.

Now,

The current atmospheric levels of carbon - at more than 400 parts per million - have placed Suriname squarely on the path to climate departure by the year 2028.

This means that the changes to the global climate are irreversible and unstoppable, and Suriname is forced to embark upon a journey with an unknown destination.

Regardless of these realities, we are here to answer the call - the call for ambitious action on Climate Change.

Our forests have absorbed over 193 million tons of carbon since 1992.

Our forests annually absorb 8.8 million tons of Carbon while our annual emissions are 7 million tons of Carbon.

We currently absorb 1.8 million tons of carbon more than we generate each year.

Therefore, our contribution to the planet, is that, as per 2014, each Surinamese citizen represents a per capita net carbon capture of 3.3 tons out of the earth's atmosphere.

While many countries are striving towards becoming carbon neutral, our current development path has already made us carbon negative.

Yet, as a developing nation, we are faced with the challenge of remaining carbon negative while attaining our sustainable development goals and at the same time dealing with the impacts of climate change.

We intend to continue to fulfill our responsibility to the world to protect our forests;

• The forests that provide the bountiful water that makes us the country with the third most renewable freshwater resources in the world;
• The forests that protect us from natural disasters and whose biodiversity feeds us;
• The forests that help all of us to mitigate global climate change.

It must be recognized that although we will continue to steward our forests, as we have done for over 300 years, our reality is changing and the defense of our way of life will have to take precedence.

On our path to combat climate change, we have long since embraced forest conservation, and more recently REDD+ as a tool for sustainable development that will guide the sustainable deployment and management of our forest estate. 

Regardless of our commitment, our small, vulnerable economy does not find itself in a position to finance the entire transition to a REDD+ economy.

We call upon Governments and the Global Community:

• To take into account the pact Suriname has made with the World to protect our forest and freshwater resources; 
• To partner with us in our transition to a REDD+ economy and work with us in our plans to protect the coastal areas against the loss of food security and property. 

Suriname is reaffirming its commitment to the world today, to keep absorbing more carbon than we generate. We invite the rest of the international community to assume appropriate binding commitments that will ensure the Future We Want.

Thank you.