Notes for the Plenary Address by Maurice F. Strong
Chairman, Earth Council Foundation
At the occasion of the Earth Dialogues Forum
Lyon, France, February 21, 2002.
Subject to change and/or abbreviation on delivery.
 
 
What a great honour and privilege it is for me to join with President Gorbachev in welcoming you to this very auspicious and timely Earth Dialogue.  I want particularly to pay a tribute to His Excellency Prime Minister Jospin for his support of this event and for so graciously and generously agreeing to deliver the Keynote Address at this opening session.  It is further evidence of his deep interest in and commitment to the issues we are addressing here which are fundamental to the future course of our global society.  And I join, too, in extending our deep gratitude to Mayor Gerard Collomb of Lyon for his initiative and support in hosting our conference in this historic city which itself is doing so much to set such a good example of dynamic, sustainable urban development.  And on behalf of the Earth Council, let me extend my thanks, too, to our partners of Green Cross International, and its eminent President Mikhael Gorbachev for taking the lead in organizing this Earth Dialogue and to the several others who have provided the assistance and support that have made it possible. 
 
In this year in which we prepare for the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in September, marking the 30th anniversary of the first global conference on the environment held in Stockholm, Sweden in 1972 and the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, it is important that we reflect on the lessons of the past 30 years and the prospects for the future.  During the past three decades we have made notable progress in defining the formidable nature of the challenges we face if the human community is to achieve the secure, sustainable and equitable future to which all people aspire. It is a future which I am convinced is achievable, but only if in the first period of this new millennium we make the fundamental “change of course” called for by business leaders at the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
 
We have still not made that change of course and will not do so unless we take the decisions and actions that will break the inertia which continues to propel us along a course that is not sustainable. As an optimist I continue to believe that such a change of course is possible. But as a realist I am deeply concerned that despite all the knowledge we have gained and the progress we have made since Stockholm first put the issue on the international agenda we have still not demonstrated the degree of political will or sense of priority that such a change of course requires.
 
The transition to a sustainable pathway in which our economic life is brought into a positive synthesis with our environmental and social needs is, I submit, as essential to the future of the human community as it was before the tragic terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, on New York and Washington. The preoccupation with the ominous consequences of these horrendous attacks is understandable and, indeed, necessary. But we must not allow this to sideline or undermine our efforts to achieve economic, environmental and social sustainability and security. The events of September 11th have dramatically brought home to us that the phenomena we now refer to as globalization, which has opened up so many new and exciting opportunities, has also united us in facing a new generation of risks and vulnerabilities. Risks to our personal security and the security of our homes, offices and communities as well as to the security of the earth’s life-support systems on which the survival and well being of the entire human family depends. These risks and vulnerabilities are inextricably linked through the complex,systemic processes of globalization by which human activities are shaping the human future. They cannot be understood or dealt with in isolation. Nor can they be managed alone by any nation, however powerful. Indeed they require a degree of cooperation beyond anything we seem yet prepared to accept.
 
This insight is not entirely new. The Greek historian Polybius, in the 1st Century B.C. wrote “Now in earlier times the world’s history had consisted, so to speak, of a series of immolated episodes, the origins and results of each being as widely separated as their localities. But from now onwards history becomes an organic whole: the affairs of Italy and Africa are connected with those of Asia and Greece, and all events bear a relationship and contribute to a single end”. Of course in our times the scale and speed of these interactions has accelerated exponentially.
 
At Stockholm we lost our innocence.  We recognized that much of what we had been doing in pursuit of our economic goals had, however inadvertently, been producing environmental damage and social dichotomies which were undermining the quality of life and our prospects for the future.   Since then we have learned a great deal more about the nature and the causes of this and have made notable progress in developing the technologies, the tools and the capacities to manage them successfully.  Indeed there have been many success stories which demonstrate that it is possible to bring our economic life into a positive balance with our environmental and social systems by making the transition to a sustainable development pathway.  On a global basis we have the knowledge, the resources, and the capacities to build in this new millennium a civilization and mode of life in which pollution and poverty are eradicated and the benefits which knowledge and technology afford made available universally to ensure all inhabitants of the earth access to the better life and a secure, sustainable future which is clearly within our reach. 
 
It is really a question of priorities and our motivations determine how we set our priorities.   The better world to which all aspire is achievable, but thus far we have not demonstrated the will to make the changes that will take us there.  It is a cruel paradox and an affront to the moral basis of our civilization that in a period of unprecedented wealth the gaps between rich and poor, between the victims and beneficiaries of globalization is deep and growing.
 
Jawaharlal Nehru commented on this paradox in an article on "The Strange Behavior of Money" in which he said that "the extraordinary spectacle of abundance and poverty existing side by side" and that "if capitalism is not advanced enough...., some other system must be evolved more in keeping with science".  And a recent article in "The Economist" - hardly a radical publication - stated that "if the Marxist prediction of a proletariat plunged into abject misery under capitalism has so far been unfulfilled, the widening gap between have and have-nots is causing some to think that Marx might yet be proved right on this point after all".
 
At the deepest level people and societies are motivated by the fundamental moral, ethical and spiritual values in which their beliefs are rooted. One of my greatest disappointments in the result of the Earth Summit was our inability to obtain agreement on an Earth Charter to define a set of basic moral and ethical principles for the conduct of people and nations towards each other and the Earth as the basis for achieving a sustainable way of life on our planet.  Governments were simply not ready for it.  So following Rio, I was pleased to join with Mikhail Gorbachev, and then with many other organizations and hundreds and thousands of people around the world to undertake this important piece of unfinished business from Rio.  A global campaign is now underway to engage millions of people in the process of using the Earth Charter as a basis for examining and guiding their own basic motivations and priorities and challenging their communities, their governments their organizations to do the same. This promises to be a compelling and authoritative voice of the world’s people at Johannesburg, which hopefully will inspire the leaders there to accept it as a moral guide to the decisions they take there.
 
I am persuaded that the 21st century will be decisive for the human species. For we are now in a very real sense trustees of our own future.  The direction of the human future will be largely set in the first decades of this century. All the evidences of environmental degradation, social tension and inter-communal conflict we have seen to date have occurred at levels of population and human activity that are a great deal less than they will be in the in the period ahead.  The risks we face in common from the mounting dangers to the environment, resource base and life support systems on which all life on earth depends are far greater as we move into the 21st century than the risks we face or have faced in our conflicts with each other.  
 
 
A new paradigm of cooperative global governance is the only feasible basis on which we can manage these risks and realize the immense potential for progress and fulfillment for the entire human family, which is within our reach.  In our attempts to do this we are locked in a struggle between the world’s ecosystems and its egosystems.   It is the egosystems – the nations, the institutions, and indeed the individuals, which will have to change, and which are so resistant to change. 
 
All people and nations have in the past been willing to accord highest priority to the measures required for their own security.  We must give the same kind of priority to civilizational security and sustainability.  This will take a major shift in the current political mind-set.  Necessity will compel such a shift eventually; the question is can we really afford the costs and the risks of waiting. Your participation in the Earth Dialogue reinforces my belief that this change is possible but we must be unrelenting in our efforts to bring it about.  For every year, every day and indeed every hour we delay will make the prospect of the shift to sustainability less likely and more costly.  This Earth Dialogue has the opportunity to generate new energy and new impetus to effect the change of course, which is the key to our future.