UN General Assembly
2007

Please accept my congratulations, Mr. President, on your election as President of the General Assembly at its sixty-second session. I wish you every success. We are currently experiencing a period of dramatic changes. Great opportunities are accompanied by considerable risks. Global structures are changing. States, economies and societies are becoming networked as never before. That is what we call globalization. The good thing about that development is that prosperity is increasing, and more and more people are escaping from poverty. The challenge that that development poses is that not everyone has their fair share of this prosperity. There are considerable imbalances. We thus need a global awareness, beyond national boundaries, of our joint responsibility in order to master the major challenges facing our world. Climate change is undoubtedly one of the central challenges facing humanity today. I therefore very much welcome your decision, Mr. President, to make climate change the focus of this year’s session of the General Assembly. Never before have the facts been so clear, the consensus among scientists so great or the