Governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Mr. Marcelo Alencar,
Ministers of State present here,
Mayor of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Luis Paulo Conde,
President of the Rio+5 meeting,
President of the World Bank, my friend James Wolffenson,
President of the Brazilian Foundation for Sustainable Development, Israel Klabin,
Director-General of UNESCO, Federico Mayor,
Adviser for the Brazilian Foundation for Sustainable Development, Mr. Lorenzen,
Ladies and gentlemen,

After Mr. Wolffenson spoke such generous presentation words, the governor of Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo Alencar, said to my ear that I should try my best to somewhat come up to the compliments he made. I ask your pardon since that is not possible and I also ask the foreigners that are here — I hope the translation is being made satisfactorily — to excuse my expressing myself in my own language, so that, little by little Portuguese will become a more universal language, who knows, and you may understand it in the future with no need for interpretation.

This meeting today is an unique opportunity, since it well characterizes the current situation of the issue of sustainable development. And, at the same time, the issue of the very evolution of the Brazilian society. Unfortunately, I did not take part in the ’92 meeting. I could have participated — I was a senator at the time, but I was ill and could not leave São Paulo.

But the ’92 meeting caused great impact and generated a certain amount of expectations at world level, probably beyond what would be possible to fulfill. The issue of sustainable development, the very theme of environment had not until then received universal acceptation, let us say, it had not been officially accepted by the United Nations. And, however, it could be felt that we were distant from another time when development had little to do with society and practically nothing to do with the environment. The actual idea of development was very attached to a poorer dimension, which was basically the dimension of economical growth, measured by indicators at the same time sensitive and rudimentary, such as the per capita product of each country.

At the famous Conference in Stockholm, during which Mr. Strong played such an important role in alerting humanity to the environmental issues, the position of the Brazilian government was, pure and simply, maintaining a pointless affirmation. They used to say: blessed pollution.

According to the thought of the time, pollution meant industrialization and riches, along with welfare after a time, who knows exactly when, for everyone. This has changed a lot. At the Earth Summit, no one would make use of such a nonsense. Everyone had already added to the idea of development, not only the dimension of actual transformation in terms of economical production, but also the social and the environmental dimensions. It was a much more complex concept, maybe not easily understood by the common sense, but which brought vital consequences for the overall set of public policies.

Many transformations have occurred in the world since ’92. And I allow myself to quote someone who is here at the moment, Mr. Gorbatchev, in whose book I read many and many years ago about the modifications that were taking place in the world. I believe, I might be mistaken, that he was the first leader of a country of global importance to say that the challenge the environment represents was such that in no way it embodied and maybe even surpassed the conflict of classes. It was of such a nature that no longer could we think about the problems in the world only from the concept of nation, and even less, of Nation State, because there would be the necessity of a convergence and a reflection that would go beyond the limits of class and political organization of a state, and even the limits of a national culture.

I do not know if the necessary attention was paid to this kind of consideration, the objective of which, was to criticize the atomic race, showing that it would lead to the desegregation of the planet, in a way that no winners would be left. Consequently, no longer there would be even the fundamental reason for a war, which is the imposition of one’s will over the others’, once both sides, supposing that only two sides are involved, would have done away with each other in the process of the war.

I think that it had a much greater impact over the actual concept of politics than we believed — perhaps I am being unjust now, since I’m distant from the academic environment — but I am referring to what was academically accepted, and this was before ’92. In ’92, therefore, we had already reaped the fruit of the many changes that were happening in the world, in addition to the awareness of something that with another use of language and purpose, some people called "global village", that is, the planet Earth and the necessity of the thought to be really universal.

But if something new has marked this approach of the issue of social, political, economical and environmental development, it was the exact perception of the fact that we are dealing with a phenomenon, the dimension of which is anchored both in the local, everyday life, and in another dimension, which is the universal one. As a consequence, it is not possible anymore to think about sustainable development, as it is not possible to think about politics — I will be talking about this soon — unless we have the capacity to understand such complexity, the fact that we are dealing with a phenomenon with this kind of duality. While there is a very local reference, there is also an universal one. That is why I mentioned Mr. Gorbatchev’s understanding of the problem of politics in the world, in a moment when frontiers are crushed, and in the course of time, the notion of sustainable development manages to recompose, not the frontier, but the necessary reference to what is particular, peculiar, specific and local.

It is in this duality between the local and the universal that we should place today all the policies and all the thoughts we might have as to what sustainable development is. But more than that, I believe that this notion that sprang, as everyone knows, first from the economical thought of development, from the actual development period, and then from the confluence between economical development and the issues brought up by the environmentalists, who, at that time, perhaps were not involved yet with economical concerns. After that, by the multiplicity of organizations anchored in the civil society. In a certain moment, it was possible to perceive this new dimension: there will not be sustainable development, neither the economical nor the environmental dimension, if there is no democracy. And democracy is also viewed under this new light, that is, as something that regards general rules, rules that are very immediate and local. This is the challenge.

And because of that, very frequently the disagreements that take place concerning the contemporary issue of sustainable development sound a little false to me, when one does not perceive the necessary connection between what is local and what is general, between what lays outside the state and what is inside of it, between what is necessary for the economy to grow and what is essential for society not to suffer with this growth, between what is necessary to preserve and what has to be transformed. This reality of ours is so complex, likewise the concepts being developed to capture it, that many times we are already practicing something new, but using concepts that even when abstractly correct are incapable of including the nuances and the multiplicities of the various aspects being embodied by this new practice.

That’s where, I repeat, the great challenge lays. There will only be sustainable development if we are able to create democratic societies, not just in the sense of democracy as a form of political representation and renovation of directing elites, but as a form of harmonization between the decisions of local groups and more global decision-making processes, without some people thinking that they can live without the others. Because when that happens, a perverse dialectics takes place.

I am used to repeating an expression I borrowed from a Spanish sociologist who is a friend of mine, the Professor Manoel Castells. When referring to the democratization that sustained all transformations, he qualified the organizations that used to be called non-governmental as neo-governmental.

As a first reaction, this affirmation sounds a bit strange, because it gives the impression that either we wish to co-opt or manipulate them, or that we are disqualifying them, but that is not what it is. In the modern world, if we wish to achieve not only sustainable development but also a sustainable policy, either there is an interaction between what the government is and what society is, without one being absorbed by the other, and a fruitful dialog is established, or what we have is a miscommunication, in which some will demand and the others will not pay debts that they cannot pay for lack of resources, and some will say that they are being disregarded while the others claim that those are unfounded complaints.

Then, there is no possible dialog because there is not a true understanding of the challenge that is not a challenge for the governments or society only, but for humanity. It is such a challenge that forms of participation need to be created, involving decisions that truly lead to a confluence, in a way this confluence does not result in mere manipulation or rejection — manipulation by the state and rejection by society’s organizations, and this challenge is overcome, or the very concept of sustainable development will end up being only a concept, not having any strength to become practice. This is our challenge.

Since ’92, we have progressed a bit, certainly not too much, certainly quite less than we wished we would, certainly quite less than would desire anyone who is aware of the process that is taking effect in the planet in terms of development and environment.

But it would be wrong to imagine that we have not gone any further for lack of decisions, will, and resources, maybe this has also lacked, but much more than that, a new practice was missing. This new practice involves permanent dialog like this, permanent debate, and the search for means that enable something concrete to arise from this debate so that it does not take place only for those who find pleasure in debating, but rather, that a transformation is brought about.

I am not the kind of person that has a pessimistic view of humanity. I believe the progressive thinking does not go together with pessimism. Pessimism is part of the conservative, not the progressive thought. The pessimist ones do not try to change anything because they do not believe in the changes beforehand. There is a book by a friend of us, Albert Hirschman, which is admirable on this aspect. It deals with the reactionary rhetoric, in which it can be clearly seen that pessimism is really the greatest motivator of conservatism. Either we assume a position of believing that something can be done or we do not even try to do anything. So, at the same time that one should have, as I see it, an optimistic view of the transformations, it is necessary to avoid getting carried away by pure optimism.

I am not one of those who have a purely critical view, not even in respect for the environmental issue, because only a conservative has an entirely critical view. For not having a critical view at all, one is either naive or incapable of advancing, but whoever has an exclusively critical view is a conservative. It is necessary to have both the critical view and a generous proposal, which also includes believing in the others, in the others’ capacity to do something and in the capacity we have of transforming the other. And this applies both to the matters of the government and the civil society, it applies to what concerns the oppositions between the economical and the social, the local political and the universal factors. If we have, let us say, a little more generous view of the historical process, I would say that there have been important modifications, quite inferior, I repeat, to what we wished, but we have to look at the changes already produced, the options for something better, the motivation to keep on advancing and not just looking at what has not been done, because that would be the paralyzation of the historical process, which cannot be paralyzed. Even when people erroneously have a more limited view of the process, the process exists. This process is happening, in Brazil as well.

Five years ago, in 1992, people did not have the awareness they do today, at least of what has to be done. Awareness has risen quite a lot, as well as the pressure and the almost compulsive necessity everyone feels of admitting that, "Hey, we have to be careful, because there is another side to it". There is another aspect. There is the environmental dimension, there is the social injustice dimension, there is the ethical dimension.

And when the ethical dimension is formulated in a political process or in a process of economic growth, it is then that we start to have a broader view, it is then that we see that the concept of sustainable development has to include also the question of equity, and the question of democracy.

It is a tremendous challenge. It is a challenge that may find easier solution possibly in countries with greater awareness of the ecological processes and that are also more economically and socially advanced than developing countries, where heterogeneity quite often makes any decision-making process more difficult, especially when it comes to their implementation.

But, undoubtedly, if I can put it that way, it is a civilization issue, including, therefore, the absorption by society — the government included — of the new values, which require, as a consequence, a spirit of — it is an old expression — "political and social engineering", the creation of institutions, instruments, and mechanisms that allow things to advance, impelling things forward.

Brazil is a vast country, with many inequalities, concentrations of poverty and riches, an immensity of problems to be faced, including the fact that today we are able to be informed of the tragedies that are taking place. We weekly monitor the burning of Amazonia. Every week, we have satellite information of what is happening to the burnings there. We are able to know what is happening with the logging of trees, the exploration of log companies that invade certain regions. Things we have no conditions to stop. We have no practical, objective way to stop. But we will keep on fighting.

We issue decrees. For instance, I have just issued one prohibiting the exportation of mahogany for two years. Will it be effective? Or will it be an incentive to increase the destruction of trees and smuggling? And which is the control element that we have? Where is the State? In those regions, the State almost does not exist, there is almost no public institution capable of enforcing the law. We need more and better data and soon we will be able to adopt new measures.

However, if there fails to be an amplification and a compromise from the whole of society concerning decisions made, they die. I can see over there Senator Marina Silva. We have recently been together discussing about the Forest People, the rubber latex extractors, the concrete problems that happen in Amazonia. We took a few measures. Will they be effective?

Efficacy does not depend, exclusively, on awareness, it does not depend, exclusively, on will, but it depends also on the existence of organizational forms that lead to decisions. And these organizational forms depend, somewhat, on a degree of awareness by the population. Many times it is difficult to establish an atmosphere of trust in situations with so scarce possibilities of action to be effective. It is necessary to establish, therefore, neo-governmental mechanisms able to mobilize the populations so that the process we wish to occur in a certain way do take place.

Of course, I am referring here, perhaps, to extreme situations: burning of forest, bad utilization or difficulty in the rational exploitation of the forest. But the same applies to other areas. The same can be said about the issue of urban waste. The same applies to the question of the pollution of the Guanabara bay that we could observe in our way here. Processes are so slow they irritate. The President of the World Bank knows that. On average, it takes 18 months for a project to be approved by the IBRD. In the Brazilian Congress, it takes, on average, 3 to 4 years for a law to be approved.

But that is the way things are. Bureaucracy exists, political interests exist. It takes time for things to actually move in a certain direction. And if we do not keep the flame lit, or push everything into the bonfire of vanities, destroying everything and everybody, nothing will move. It is necessary to have a historical understanding of a process.

In the case of the environment, we do not deal with nature, but human beings that are in nature. They are part of it, but they are the ones who move, who contaminate or not. And human beings react and have varied interests, and it takes time to organize their decisions. And their decisions are not homogeneous, they conflict with one another. A whole process takes place.

I believe that in the specific case of the last 5 years, this process is in its way. I do not say that as someone who tries to carry water in a sieve, saying that there will not be any problems, because certainly they will exist. But we cannot lose our determination, the trust and the rational capacity of understanding why and why not, and above all, understanding what is the essence for the solution of questions, which is the question of democratization in its broad sense, the decision-making processes and the integration of the various sectors involved, in a process that enables us to urge on the transformations we wish.

I believe that it is with this spirit that we should make the balance of the last five years. Of course, it does not fall to the President of the Republic to make the negative balance, but to the organizations — as this conference has certainly done. I can only but conclude with a message of optimism, with a message of trust, conviction, and the belief that it is possible to improve, it is possible to advance further. There is still a long way to go, but it is possible to advance.

When it comes to the Brazilian society, I have no doubt that this simultaneous process of growing democratization and awareness raising is advancing with great celerity. The ones who experienced the Brazilian political processes twenty years ago, or fifteen years ago, and observed what happened to this society in such a short period, notice that there have been important changes. The ones who did not go through it, can read about it and see that there are important changes to consider.

Not only in Brazil. Why? Because we have reached a moment in the development of humanity that requires a more universal and planetary dimension, there is a sort of interaction among everyone that passes from one country to the other. And that is a good thing. The means of communication accelerate all these processes. And without them, there is no contemporary society. Everything depends on the symbols, the signification, the capacity of convincing, and the means that transmit these symbols and signification. The word is important for things to change. And this is also becoming universal.

This dialectics between the particular and the general, which is in the heart of the same problem of sustainable development, has to be viewed and reviewed. I would say that if we see the Agenda 21, if we take a look at what was promised and what was fulfilled, we are sure going to be disappointed. Much more was promised than accomplished. But something was done. We need now — and we are going to have a meeting in June at the United Nations — we need now to light again the flame, with the spirit of one who says: "Look, there’s a long way to go. We need more." There are paths to be followed and we are going to follow them.

I believe that in this whole process, a certain love for restricting the decision-making process disappears — the issues are ours, not theirs. The issues are ours, indeed, but this "ours" is plural. And when we say that "this ours is plural", we do not mean that "sovereignty" is being alienated. That is not the case. We are adding a new element to sovereignty, once we understand sovereignty as the capacity of making decisions and choosing the decisions to be made.

And if we imagine that sovereignty is not having an alternative, other than a dead end defined by the previous generation in a certain territory, we are going to define sovereignty as something that is intrinsically contrary to progress and transformation. But if we define sovereignty as the capacity to make decisions, options being offered and known, this process that is happening, including the specific case of the environment, adds up to a new form of sovereignty.

It is of no use now discussing if foreigners should or not discuss the Amazonian issue. Not because it is the "lung" of humanity, which is doubtful. But for other reason: because we also have the right to discuss what is happening with the gases that are emitted in the Northern Hemisphere, which are affecting the future of the planet. It is the same position, requiring the understanding that this universal sense should be present in every local decision. And that is why we can add our particular Brazilian experience to the whole of the actions that are being developed at the international level.

Obviously, all of this will require more organization, more dialog, more criticism, more financing, and so on. These issues cannot be solved without the availability of proper resources to face them. Many of the existing issues are known and renown. They are not solved because there is no financing. Not all of them. Some, or maybe many of them, are not solved for pure lack of will, or due to other conditions. But the question of the financing is a very present one.

I believe this possibility has been discussed many times: how to finance the environment. Minister Krause was talking to me on the plane and said that I shouldn’t use the word taxation, because the press would make it headline tomorrow, so he suggested an expression that I approve of, which is "the polluter has to pay".

I mean it is necessary to create some concepts that lead to that, that lead to a moral coercion, that make the reconstruction of a new environmental situation to be financed, mostly, by those who are responsible for the degradation of the environment.

How is that going to be achieved? It falls to technicians and to multiple decisions. But the debate has to be open, because otherwise, we are not going to be able to face the numerous challenges we have to face.

Ladies and gentlemen, these have been the words I wanted to transmit to you. I reiterate my optimism, which is not unrealistic, which is not based on a mere desire, but on the observation of the things that are happening. I am sorry for not having been able to participate in the daily discussions of this meeting because other occupations would not allow me to, but I am sure that the experience of those who have participated here will be of great value for all of us, who are interested in urging on new practices in the transformation of our society and which bear in their essence, this notion of sustainable development.

Thank you very much.