Szijjarto: ‘Civilised East-West cooperation’ essential to meeting sustainable development goals
UN climate protection goals set a few years ago will affect the future of the entire planet, the ministry cited Szijjarto telling a high-level political forum on sustainable development at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday.
“Last year was the warmest year ever, and the past decade was the warmest ever decade … so it clearly shows that environmental protection must be an important issue in the long term,” he said.
“If the major countries in world politics do not talk to each other, if they cut the diplomatic channels, if they are unable to maintained civilised cooperation, then we cannot achieve results in matters that are important for the future of the entire planet,” he added. Szijjarto said that achieving the UN sustainable development goals and protecting the environment would be impossible globally if the major states continued to refuse to talk to each other.
“Without a civilised East-West cooperation, it is impossible to achieve results in important matters affecting the future of the planet. In a cold war atmosphere it will be impossible to fulfil the environmental protection and sustainable development goals,” he said.
He added that Hungary showed an encouraging example, citing the expansion project of the Paks nuclear power station, which, he said, proved that despite all ideological attacks, nuclear energy could be used to produce a large volume of electricity in a reliable and sustainable way.
He noted that the general contractor for the project is Russian, but American, German and French subcontractors are also involved. Such cooperation “shows common sense prevailing over political prejudice and ideological motivations”, he added.
“There is still a chance for international cooperation based on common sense, even among those that for the time being refuse to even talk to each other in politics,” he said.