DOKUMENT: Per Stig Møllers tale ved åbningen af konferencen Global Conscience i Landstingssalen på Christiansborg søndag den 23. maj.
Her søsætter udenrigsministeren bl.a. et dansk initiativ om et internationalt studie af den komplicerede struktur i de mange multilaterale miljøaftaler og giver – ikke mindst – oplysning om en bevilling på 15 mio. kr. til et program, der skal rydde op i bjergene af pesticid- og kemikalieaffald på det afrikanske kontinent. Det farlige stads anslås til ikke mindre end 50.000 tons, hvoraf meget er dumpet fra de rige lande.
The problems of the world are interrelated like Rubiks Cube. As soon as one side of the cube is well arranged, problems occur on the other side. And when those problems are solved, there will be new problems elsewhere.
One might say that the up-coming Copenhagen Consensus Conference – through application of an economic cost-benefit approach to the worlds challenges – will seek to arrange one side of Rubiks Cube. I am sure that we can learn something from the Copenhagen Consensus, but not everything.
This parallel conference on “Global Conscience – environment, poverty and social development” will show some problems which will occur on the other side of the Cube, and is therefore a very welcome complementary initiative.
In a complex reality, no sound choices can be built on a single premise or rationale. The right to choose cannot and should not be handed over to experts or NGOs. In the end, accountable politicians must make the difficult decision on priorities and the relevant policy mix to achieve them. That is our job. That is representative democracy.
The problems we face are demographic, democratic, ecological and economical. And we may as well eliminate the extreme solutions right away.
If a country decides to be the cleanest in the world, it will soon also be the poorest. Regulations and price increases will put a halt to the productive capacity. Exports and income will decrease, workplaces will disappear and so will the possibilities for taking care of health problems and social problems.
The country will be clean and poor, misery will spread, there will be social unrest, the government will be overthrown and the new regime will decide to produce its way out of poverty.
This regime will move to the other extreme: Producing wealth without caring for anything else.
The natural resources will be exploited, there will be an unlimited consumption of energy, cheaper products, growing exports, employment will increase, the population will be well off seen from a material point of view, and everything will seem fine. But only for a while.
Then the problems will begin to emerge. Health problems, environmental degradation, loss of natural resources. Environmental movements will appear, there will be social unrest, and also this regime will be overthrown.
Both of these extreme regimes are therefore unsuited when it comes to solving our problems.
We live in a world where problems need to be related to one another. We need to seek solutions that are balanced over a longer timespan. Solutions that are well thought out, broadly agreed upon and maintained over many years.
Sustainable solutions thus call for determination, time and perseverance.
This means that we have to prioritise among problems and solutions. The priorities must be a result of careful considerations as well as a careful scientific and democratic debate.
When I became minister for the environment in 1990, I actually started such a debate. I invited 25 scientists and NGOs to a meeting where I asked each of them to mention the three most pertinent environmental problems. To my surprise they pointed at the same three problems.
This created the basis for financial allocations that were broadly agreed, and a situation where problems suddenly launched as new threats by newspapers on the front page were already known and part of the overall policy.
But the environmental problems cannot be solved in isolation. They are related to the other big problems, I mentioned earlier. These problems also have to be solved and they all have to be solved simultaneously. If not, we are back to Rubiks Cube.
If the demographic problems are not solved, the environmental problems will not be solved either. The hundreds of millions of new citizens that will be born in developing countries in the coming 20 years will need employment.
Like the rest of us they will need to produce and export to create economic and social progress and this will inevitably strain the worlds natural resources and energy resources further.
We need a growing economy to improve the livelihoods of the worlds poor. This is a precondition for a peaceful future.
If two thirds of the worlds population is marginalized, regional and international conflicts as well as terrorism will grow. This will lead to a disaster for all of us. We need a free and fair international trade system to spur this growing economy. But the economy must grow in respect for local, regional and global environmental problems. Therefore we need international environmental agreements.
And we need to combine development policies with environmental policies, policies to enhance democracy, to fight terror and to fight corruption. The objective of our development policies continues to be to eradicate poverty.
But poverty has many faces and causes. Poverty is measured in economic terms but is accompanied and often reinforced by lack of access to clean drinking water, education, and health care, as well as exposure to HIV/AIDS and environmental degradation.
The absence of reforms and democracy creates the basis for extremist developments and thereby ultimately for terrorism. It causes tension, unrest, lack of investments and an economic situation that leaves the poor even poorer.
When more than 30 percent of a population is under 30 years old and these young people have neither access to education or jobs, they turn to desperate action of some kind – or they will leave their home country in a vague hope for a more prosperous future elsewhere.
As we can see there is not one single, easy solution, but there are many solutions. These need to point in the same direction, they need to be implemented coherently and in a long-term perspective.
At the same time we need some results in the shorter run for people not to loose faith and withdraw their support. If they do we, will end where we started, applying the short-term solutions that waste money and resources and that lead to growing tension and unrest.
Martin Andersen Nexø wrote his world famous novel “Pelle the Conquerer” early in the past century. Pelles poor and hard-working father summarizes the experiences of generations of poor people when he says to his son: “Work today, eat tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes”.
In a globalized world with satellite TV this can no longer be the experience parents pass on to their children. If there is no tomorrow, if there is no hope, you take what you can get and you use whatever it takes. The world will not gain anything from this development. Those who “have” will suffer and those who “have not” will only suffer more.
When the Danish Government last year presented its visions for the Danish development assistance in the years to come, it was done under the heading “A World of Difference”.
The explicit aim is to ensure that the Danish assistance is focused, effective and up-to-date to deliver on ensuring
poverty reduction as the overriding objective
respect for human rights, good governance and democratisation
stability, security and the fight against terrorism
support for refugees, humanitarian assistance and regions of origin
environmental sustainability, as well as
social and economic development
In line with our ambition to stay focused, effective and up-to-date, we need to enhance the effectiveness of development cooperation. At present there is too much overlapping and working at cross-purposes. And just understanding the jungle of different procedures and rules that donors employ constitute a major task for developing countries.
We need to improve coherence and coordination of development cooperation and we need to harmonise donor procedures and adapt them to the national procedures of our partner countries. Denmark has already taken initiatives in this direction.
“A World of Difference” acknowledges the need to take into consideration the environmental sustainability of our assistance to create global stability and development. As a consequence, Denmarks support for global environmental programmes will be increased by DKK 415 million in the period 2004-08.
International environmental cooperation is, however, also an area where I am convinced that we need to enhance effectiveness to ensure implementation. Much has been said about the shortcomings of the present international environmental regime, its fragmentation, the limited authority of UNEP, and the need to ensure implementation of multilateral environmental agreements.
Some decisions have been taken to remedy the situation, and some steps have been taken to implement these decisions. But I am afraid that this is not sufficient, if we wish to see a strong international environmental regime and to strengthen the possibilities for developing countries to implement the decisions made in international fora.
President Chirac of France has launched a reflection on the transformation of UNEP from a UN programme to a UN specialised agency (UN Environment Organisation, UNEO).
Denmark welcomes this process of reflection. I am sure it will help to make us all wiser and better prepared for making the right decisions in the coming years. It is however important that the process does not focus solely on how to transform UNEP while leaving aside the problems related to the proliferation of environmental agreements and of convention secretariats scattered across the globe.
The question is how we approach this problem of fragmentation, a problem which is extremely complex whether approached from a legal, an organisational or even a financial point of view.
Personally, I think we need to understand the issue of fragmentation better to be able to identify options that can lead to better-informed decisions about the future structure in the field of international environmental cooperation.
I have therefore decided to launch an international study which, seen from the three angles I mentioned (legal, organisational, financial), will seek to map out the current structure around the Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), to identify the challenges in reducing the fragmentation, and how these may be overcome, and to point at possible ways to link a strengthened, more coherent and efficient MEA-system to a future UN Environment Organisation.
Denmark was happy to morally and financially support the launch in December 2003 of the Environment Action Plan developed under the New Partnership for Africa (NEPAD) assisted by UNEP. The Action Plan covers a range of environmental problems facing the African continent.
One very pertinent problem – a very clear example of the interrelation between poverty and environment – is posed by the 50.000 tonnes of stockpiles of obsolete pesticides and other chemicals that are spread all over the continent.
Through contamination of soil, water, air and food sources, these stockpiles pose serious threats to the health of both urban and rural populations, especially the poorest of the poor.
Supported by the NEPAD secretariat, the African countries have decided to do something about these problems in a unique alliance with international organisations (the World Bank FAO, UNEP), NGOs (WWF and Pesticide Action Network), as well as Crop Life International who represents chemical producers who have accepted to finance the destruction of pesticides traceable to member companies.
The challenge of “The Africa Stockpiles Programme” is to clean up the stockpiles in a safe way and to prevent stockpiling in the future.
Funds are being raised for the programme, and I am pleased to announce that Denmark is ready to contribute 15 million DKK of the co-financing needed for the first phase of this important programme which will also – and I think this is very important – encourage African countries that have not yet done so to ratify the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. The Convention entered into force only six days ago, on the 17th of May.
Democracy is the best way to ensure that plans and priorities are subject to the right checks and balances, that politicians are held responsible for the choices they make, and that voices of different opinion are heard.
The fact that this conference with its very broad perspective on the challenges to sustainable development takes place almost in parallel with a conference applying an economic cost-benefit approach to 10 of the worlds greatest challenges, is to me a proof of how democracy works at its best.
I sincerely hope that both conferences will give way to discussions and reflections as well as concrete action directed at tackling the global challenges of this Century. We need to get Rubiks Cube right and to prove Pelles father wrong.
Kilde: www.um.dk
