A Sustainable Future Needs Sustainable Cities

Minister of the Environment Børge Brendes speach at the ICLEI Conference, Oslo, 10 February 2002

(the text must be controlled against the actual speach)

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Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to Norway. It is a great pleasure to see a room full of environment leaders keen to take on new challenges.

30 years ago, at the time of the first World Summit on the Environment in Stockholm, most of the discussions were about whether the environment needed attention at all. Now we have put that behind us and face the really difficult issue; how to reach our aims.

Norway has studied the proposals of the Secretary General of the UN for the World Summit with great interest. We also note that environment and health, water issues and possibly oceans as well as energy for development figure high up on the list that many countries bring to the preparatory meetings. Regardless of which issues will turn out to be most important, we hope to achieve real progress. To make my point in other words: Recycling is good for the environment – recycling standard UN discussions of old texts is not so good for the environment.

You have come here to prepare for the World Summit at Johannesburg, but also to benefit from exchanging experience.

Norway – and all other countries in Europe – are searching for ways to improve the global environmental efforts. We know that to persuade the poor countries of the world to take on strong obligations on climate, biodiversity and toxic chemicals, we must be seen to shoulder our own responsibilities.

This is especially so when cities are concerned. There is no sustainable future unless the cities of the world become sustainable. If Europe’s cities have managed to work free of the poverty that dominated a hundred years ago, if Europe’s cities have managed to rebuild from the ruins of war and can handle the new challenges of prosperity, certainly cities in other parts of the world can also better their lot against all the odds. Again, agreeing on what needs to be done is the easy part; building consensus on how to do it is the difficult bit.

Hosts are not supposed to brag about their own achievements, so I will praise the achievements of the city of Oslo instead.

As the biggest city in Norway, Oslo gets more than its share of impatient queues. There are queues on the road with cars from far beyond the city limits lining up each morning. The public transport system had been underfunded for years.

Oslo is now meeting the challenge with a road-pricing system and an alliance between the Government and the City now providing capital for renovation and expansion.

There is enormous demand for housing and eager buyers bid up the prices of flats and houses. It takes political courage to state the facts: it is impossible for everyone to live in the fashionable centre of town, while building on each piece of green land would destroy the quality of life in the city.

Oslo is doing the right thing: protecting the forests and greensites, building on old factory sites and using degraded land better, while striving to improve rail services commuting from areas with cheaper housing.

There are encouraging queues as well; we have a long list of good new initiatives. Oslo has had a vital Local Agenda 21 process and a host of good proposals has come out of that. Oslo has made a strategy for energy and climate so as to handle one of the most important global challenges of our time.

I am sure that Oslo’s co-operation within ICLEI will lead on to further initiatives for the benefit of the inhabitants of the city and for the benefit of the wider environment.

My government is preparing the Norwegian sustainability strategy this spring. Following the UN decision to invite all parts of society to contribute, we are publishing the Governments draft outline, inviting comments on the direction Norway should head.

The OECD, the European Union, the Nordic Council and some countries have already prepared their strategies. I note that the level of detail varies, but that all try to look beyond the usual time perspective of 5 to 10 years. I also note an emphasis on measuring progress by choosing key indicators and on revisiting the strategy so as to make it a process, not a rigid plan.

We have already received enthusiastic proposals for details of a national Agenda 21. Here it is important to keep the concepts apart; the strategy that the UN General Assembly has mandated sets out the long-term course. Once the course is set we will start to look at the action plans of implementation.

We hope for national consensus on part of the way forwards, but even if we find that views differ, a clear and visible public debate between now and April will give a better foundation for choosing our policies. In particular, I look forward to seeing the response from local governments, and to see if they propose alliances with industry, with labour and with the organizations.

I believe that good practical examples on how European cities promote public transport, renewable energy, clean water, green procurement and green open space will be essential. Good examples are important because they show that improvement is possible. Good examples should also show that this can be done without excessive costs and with large long-term benefits to the ordinary citizen.

Johannesburg will not be an environment conference; it will be a summit on the global necessities. It will deal with economics, social issues as well as the natural resource base and the biodiversity that sustains us. This is why we must not just preach to the rest of the world that they should set their house in order. We must show what can be done and that what we have done makes sense, economically, socially and environmentally.

As Environment Ministers we have to address in Johannesburg the need for integration of environment and sustainable development perspectives into all sectors of society, first and foremost at home and in our local communities, but also internationally.

Reduction of poverty is a pre-condition for sustainable development. Norway fully supports the emphasis on poverty eradication at the Johannesburg Summit. Taking poverty seriously also implies looking at some hard facts: the poor are the main losers when the environment is degraded and the ones who suffer the most from climate change, soil erosion, water pollution and biodiversity loss.

Our ambitions for Johannesburg should be high, reflecting real political commitment to sustainable development.

I wish you luck in your deliberations and hope that the Agenda 21 pillar of Local government will turn out to be one of the strongest at the World Summit.