Tal
3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien, Stockholm, 18 maj 2011
Andreas Carlgren, Miljöminister

Speech by The minister for the Environment Andreas Carlgren at the Nobel Symposium, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien

Your Majesty, Nobel Laureates, scholars, distinguished ladies and gentlemen.

I was just eleven or twelve years when I was given a book about the first trip to the moon. The wonderful picture of the Earth - the shimmering blue planet with streaks of green and white clouds - made an immense impression on me.

It gave me - and many others - a momentous insight: The Earth is humanity's home in space. Or with the words of the Stockholm conference in 1972: Only one Earth.

We learned that the sphere of life, our Earth's biosphere, is thin, fragile fabric that can easily be disturbed. Here the entire history of humanity has been played out. Our limitations are here. But here will also every future prospect for humanity be developed.

"Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters?" asked India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at the Stockholm conference. Mrs Gandhi confronted the world with the fact that poverty is both a major cause and a consequence of environmental degradation.

Today, natural capital is being used up as though we had several planets at our disposal. The rich world consumes most of the world's resources. And let us acknowledge our moral environmental debt. At the same time: the world is starving and crying out for development and growth. The poor must have the right to develop. And the rich should support, in order to avoid repeating our mistakes.

This challenge is at the heart of all environmental UN-negation, due to what I have experienced. But the dilemma is this: Infinite growth in consumption of natural resources is not possible on a finite planet. Growth that is environmentally damaging destroys itself. But, at the same time, we cannot win the war on poverty without growth.

Our future possibilities must be developed within the Earth's planetary boundaries. Rich countries has to take the lead. Global institutions must be formed, enabling global stewardship. And genuinely green, sustainable growth must raise the poor towards sustainable welfare.

Instead of environmental tipping-points we must create political and economic turning-points. And as environmental tipping-points are destructive, so life after political and economic turning-points is attractive. More renewable energy means less of Fukushima and climate change. More of electric cars, powered by wind and solar, means cleaner and more silent cities. Just as some examples.

The Stockholm Memorandum delivers a powerful message about the most pressing challenge of the 21st century: Global stewardship has to pave the way for an age of sustainability. In our era, where humanity is the largest driver of global change, we need a mind-shift for a Great Transformation. This is also a call for immediate and decisive political leadership.

Therefore: Decision-makers must listen to science community, in order to define the safe operating space of the Earths planetary boundaries. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, led for a long time by the Swede Bert Bolin, is one example of this. A similar panel for biodiversity must be another. Platforms for new innovative sustainable solutions must also be created in dialogue with science, in order to break the link between economic growth and environmental degradation. A "high-ecology" society is also a high-technology society, with technology in harmony with nature.

Deadlocks in international negotiations must not block environmental progress. New partnerships between North and South are therefore needed - for example to mobilize capital for investments, spread of technologies, stop destruction of the rainforests, phase out fossil subsidies, use our energy more effectively, and develop renewable and emission-free energy. Coalitions of forerunners will - and must! - inspire others to follow.

We know, the market has no ethical compass of its own. However, the market does possess an unrivalled power for change. With strong and green price signals the developmental forces of capitalism will move swiftly and powerfully in the green direction. Therefore: Put a price on carbon through carbon taxes and rigorous cap and trade systems. Along this road Sweden has experienced a success-story, with carbon emissions reduced significantly for almost twenty years in a growing and flourishing economy.

You are working here with the concept of court proceedings. And let it be no doubt: History will judge us in a trial with the current generation vs future generations.

This challenge is sharpened as humanity is now the largest driver of global change. But, as humanity is the only species whose actions can have consequences for the entire planet, only we humans are able to ethically reflect on our actions. And only we humans can manage ecosystems. The dramatically widened responsibility has to be met by a similarly widened ethical understanding.

The Jewish philosopher Hans Jonas therefore formulated a new imperative for our time: Act so that the consequences of your actions are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life at the planet earth.

So, out of very clear values, we have to carve future society. Why do I say "carve"? Because I like to think that we politicians should look at ourselves as sculptors. The politician should be like a sculptor with the clear inner vision of the future, and with the capacity of a skilled craftsmen to form it.

By acting like that, we will give content and meaning to the words once written by UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld: "In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action." This is our chance to live according to the insight Only one Earth.