Wednesday, 6 October United Kingdom So my challenge to the ITU – in particular on broad-band, These two considerations lead me to conclude that the ITU can make a real difference in these few weeks in ad-dressing market regulation and climate change – is to take the moral high ground. Champion open and competitive markets; work to demonstrate the eco-nomic critical issues around broadband; regulation of our communication markets and climate change. importance of consumer choice and promote Firstly broadband; we heard on Monday how the ITU has played a pivotal role in facilitating a United Nations report that extols not only the economic im-portance ICT standards that help to cut global carbon omis-sions. There is simply no other organisation with the experience knowledge and reach which is more suit-ed of broadband but also the political and so-cial to these tasks importance it has for all countries. The UK is totally committed to these goals; and through the leadership of the Secretary General and his excellent team (and of course I include our own Malcolm Johnson in this) I very much hope we can make significant progress on these globally impor-tant We hope that these three weeks will build on this excellent work and that we can establish jointly a programme of work that will really put the ITU at the forefront of the broadband revolution for all citizens throughout the world. issues at this conference. Secondly – and intrinsically linked to broadband development – is the issue of regulation. Although sometimes seen as the “heavy hand of government” in fact appropriate regulation of telecommunication markets actually creates economic growth, facilitates competition and allows for innovation. It is no acci-dent Mr Chairman, on behalf of the Government of the United Kingdom, I would like to assure you of our firm support in our work to ensure the success of the Union and this Plenipotentiary Conference. I look forward to excellent debate and discussion in this beautiful city. that report after report concludes that competi-tive well regulated telecommunication markets are those that deliver most economic value and lead to highest levels of investment. Thank You. Thirdly – climate change and ICT - where we need to do more to champion the role of ICT in reducing emis-sions across all industrial and business sectors; the ITU has a pivotal role in setting the standards that both reduce omissions in existing ICT equipment deployed globally, but also in developing metrics to demonstrate the savings ICT can make; such a mandate for work from this Conference is appropriate given the hosting of the COP 16 talks by Mexico later in the year; 127