The World Economic Forum’s Global Leadership Fellows Programme

Dear Global Leadership Fellows,

Over 130 Heads of State and Government are expected to participate in the Rio+20 Conference in coming days. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has highlighted achieving sustainable development as a key priority and generational opportunity, and the coming days in Rio will be critical to seizing this opportunity.

In essence, the Conference seeks to shape how countries and their citizens can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection to achieve long-term growth. It is about enabling people to live in dignity and to pass a dignified life on to their children.

To make the issue more concrete, please allow me to mention a few figures.

Today, 200 million people worldwide are unemployed. 75 million young people are jobless, a full four million more than five years ago. This is not sustainable.

Land degradation and desertification affect 1.5 billion people across the globe, pushing people further to the extremes of subsistence. Land degradation causes the loss of about 12 million hectares of productive land every year on which 20 billion tonnes of grain could grow. This is equal to 23 hectares of land transformed into man-made desert every minute. To put this into perspective: in the hour that we spend together, an area slightly smaller than Geneva will have become desert. This too is not sustainable.

And in the field of social equity, I believe that 2011, characterized, as it was, by “Occupy” protests and by the Arab Spring, was ample evidence that continued lack of social equity is not sustainable.

So while sustainable development can sometimes seem abstract, we have already seen plenty of reasons to make this a priority today.

Sustainability goes beyond trying to find a balance to present to our populations: it is about giving these populations options. Every human being should have the opportunity to make a better life for themselves through education. Too many children in the world today are denied their basic right to even attend primary school. About 69 million school-age children were not going to school in 2008, down from 106 million children in 1999; this is progress, but it is not sufficient. The potential of these young people to fully contribute to society is dramatically diminished, and their options are limited.

We need a new development paradigm that is inclusive, people-centred and based on equality. This includes stepping up the struggle for gender equality which has been a determining feature of recent generations. Now, we need to make sure that it forms the basis for the structural, cultural and institutional changes we make as we move toward sustainable development. Today one woman dies every 2 minutes from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. In many places, women do not have equal access to land ownership and productive assets. But giving women the same access as men to seeds, fertilizers and tools could increase agricultural output by up to 4 percent and thereby reduce hunger by 100 to 150 million people. If women are not empowered and allowed to make their full contribution to society, our efforts at development will fall far short of potential.

In preparation for the Conference, seven key areas have been identified as needing urgent attention: job creation, access to energy, building sustainable cities, ensuring food security and sustainable agriculture, access to water, management of oceans and disaster readiness.

We have also noted broad support for creating so-called Sustainable Development Goals. These would complement the Millennium Development Goals, and they would be universal and measurable. Progress achieved based on the Millennium Development Goals offers clear evidence of the potential: the MDGs have helped to lift millions of people out of poverty, and by 2015, it is now expected that the global poverty rate will indeed fall below 15 per cent, well within the target of halving extreme poverty levels. This level of ambition, and more, is needed in Rio from our perspective.

The next few days will be critical. It will not surprise any of you to hear that there are difficulties in reaching agreement on some of the issues mentioned. The role of prior commitments versus new ones, the role of subsidies, the role of sanctions for damaging behaviour are all serious questions.

But this is a time of great transformation that requires long-term thinking. The dynamics of energy markets are a clear demonstration of this. Ten years ago, shale gas was virtually nowhere on leaders’ agendas, but dry shale gas production in the United States increased from 1 trillion cubic feet in 2006 to 4.8 trillion cubic feet in 2010, accounting for 23 percent of dry natural gas production. The United States is projected to become a net exporter of liquefied natural gas in 2016. If we combine this geopolitical shift with projections that non-OECD countries may account for some 70% of the increase in economic output and 90% of energy demand growth up to 2035, we can see the changes that we are undergoing. Leaders and markets are going to have to adapt.

Politics and diplomacy are difficult – having been a diplomat as well as a politician myself, I know this very well. Even with strong commitment by political leaders, there will be great challenges ahead. Member States and the United Nations cannot accomplish this alone. Achieving sustainable development will require broad-based and intensive partnerships with international organizations, local officials, business leaders and civil society actors.

The World Economic Forum is a unique and important body with strong business support, so I would like to say a few extra words on the importance of partnership with the private sector.

Support from the private sector is essential to global efforts. I deliberately do not say “our efforts” or “UN efforts”. As Carlos Slim, a successful businessman by any standard, said when we welcomed him at the Palais des Nations last week, “The best investment today is combating poverty.” Mr. Slim is a vocal advocate of this larger perspective. He specifically called for investors and governments to focus on industries that will be producing jobs in ten years. These, it is clear, will be green industries.

Mr. Slim’s advice for the coming decade is well founded in the realities of today’s economy. Tens of millions of jobs have already been created in the transformation to a greener economy. The renewable energy sector alone now employs close to 5 million workers, a number that more than doubled between 2006 and 2010. In the United States, three million people are employed in environmental goods and services. In Spain, there are now more than half a-million jobs in this sector. The potential is vast.

Business leaders have been closely involved in discussions leading up to today’s Conference in Rio. There are multiple reasons for pursuing such an integrated approach. Firstly, the private sector will inevitably be an important implementer of sustainable development – businesses will be at the heart of creating ‘green’ solutions and a jobs-rich recovery. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, it is clearly in business’ self-interest: if private companies are to engage in serious planning, they must know the rules of the road ahead. Rio+20 is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for all relevant actors to engage with each other and to establish a stable and predictable framework for growth. On this basis, business leaders need to be a loud voice for long-term solutions, and thereby counteract instability and shifting regulations in coming years.

I would also like to mention that negotiations on the final draft text to be presented to Heads of State ended in the early hours of yesterday morning. So the process did not start today, and it does not end with the close of the Rio Conference. This is an important moment in a long process of transformation which will require continued dedicated work for many years to come. Political leadership and business leadership are needed now and in the future to ensure that we can work together to find sustainable solutions to the problems facing us all.

The challenges are great, and they must be met with even greater ambition. Ambition is needed to connect the 1.3 billion people who lack electricity to light their homes or to conduct their businesses. Ambition is needed to help curb the devastating impact of rising sea levels on small island states. And ambition is needed to bridge the equity gap for the more than 450 million people globally who work, but still live on less than one dollar and twenty-five cents a day.

We look forward to our continued close partnership with the World Economic Forum as we work to overcome these challenges. The Forum has consistently shown itself to be a dynamic platform for dialogue, with Professor Schwab demonstrating great leadership in guiding the Forum as a modern organization.

Thank you.