Political Adviser Jo Stein Moen, International Centre on Trade and Sustainable Development, The Yale Club, New York City, 25. April 2000

High-Level Forum on Trade and
Sustainable Development

Mr. Chairman.

Norway appreciates the work ICTSD does with regard to capacity-building towards developing countries in the field of trade and sustainable development, and has therefore actively supported ICTSD for quite some time.

I know that ICTSD is responsible for the magazine "Bridges"; we all received one here before the meeting started. It is good, and has a very good – and relevant name – Bridges. That is what needs to be built. Not walls.

I come from the country and the Party of Gro Harlem Brundtland – the mother of the expression "Sustainable development", and I will use this opportunity to defend it. Let me start by saying that as I see it, sustainable development is more than an expression. It’s a way of thinking. The director of the Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy, Mr. Daniel Esty, just said that, from his point of view the term "Sustainable development" was useless, and that both the UN Commission of Sustainable Development and UN Environmental Program (UNEP) ought to be dissolved. I disagree with him. And what is his alternative? It is so easy to criticize, but criticism alone is not constructive without alternatives. Like the Swedish minister, I did not catch the alternative to "Sustainable development". I agree that the term is misused in many ways – we have "sustainable cars" and so on, but at the same time the expression has a meaning, and is the best there is. And I am sure both CSD and UNEP are useful tools in order to implement sustainable development.

This is my first international meeting as a political adviser in the Norwegian Ministry for Environment, because the new Labour government has been in power for about a month – even a shorter time than the present speaker from New Zealand, but I must admit that I am a bit surprised by the pessimism of some of the speakers tonight.

In Norwegian we have a expression that goes like this: "If you can`t have the one you love, love the one you get." Perhaps both UNEP and CSD can and should be reorganized, but I find it destructive to suggest them dissolved. I believe that the kind of dialogue we have here at CSD is important. I firmly believe in process and dialogue, and I am sure that CSD, perhaps especially the CSD World Summit in 2002 – "the "Rio + 10", will prove that the pessimists are wrong. I am sure processes like this, where representatives for governments, NGOs, and industry, like at the CSD meeting and around this table now, can make an impact. And "Rio +10" ought to be a major global event, arranged in a country like South Africa, that again will get focus on the problems that we and our common earth are faced with.

When the Minister of Environment and I left Norway earlier today, we met another Norwegian Minister at the airport – the Minister of Finance. He and his staff had been to a meeting abroad in one of our neighbour countries, discussing trade. It struck me then; perhaps he ought to be here at CSD instead. Why aren’t there any trade ministers or finance ministers present here at the Commission on Sustainable Development? Trade and sustainable development is surely a topic of interest and relevance for other than Ministers on Environment and Agriculture…? But I am of course glad that representatives of several governments give this meeting priority.

On behalf of Norway I would like to state that sustainable development and environmental protection should be one of the fundamental principles governing the upcoming negotiations in the World Trade Organisation. Environmental and developmental considerations should be made in all negotiation fields.

Noam Chomsky once said that "Optimism is the best strategy for a better future." I think that ought to be our guideline in the work for a sustainable development and a future for people and nature on this earth.

Thank you.

(Politiske rådgiver i MD holdt dette innlegget i Forumet som bestod av 25 personer, deriblant EU-kommissæren for landbruk Franz Fischler, den svenske landbruksministeren Margareta Winberg, New Zealands miljøvernminister Marian Hobbs og formannen for FNs Kommisjon for Bærekraftig Utvikling (CSD), den colombianske miljøvernministeren Juan Mayr-Maldonaldo.)