Eco-Minds Youth Forum

May I begin by greeting everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand, in English, Māori, Cook Island Māori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language.  Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni and as it is the morning (Sign)

May I specifically greet you: Young-Woo Park, Regional Director for the United Nations Environment Programme; Professor Stuart McCutcheon, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Auckland; Hans-Dieter Hausner, Senior Country Representative of Bayer Australia and New Zealand; Professor Bryan Gould New Zealand Commission Chairman for UNESCO, Eco-Minds participants from a number of places in our part of the world; Distinguished Guests otherwise; Ladies and Gentlemen. 

Thank you for the invitation to attend the opening of the 2009 Eco-Minds sustainable development youth forum here in Auckland today.

As Governor-General, it gives me great pleasure to add to the welcome to the international visitors to Auckland and to New Zealand.  I understand that as part of the forum you will be travelling outside of Auckland, but I hope you will also have some opportunity to explore individually some more of our beautiful country while you are here.

I have been asked to formally open the forum, but before I do, I would like to speak about the role that young people can play in sustainable development. 

Before I start, I need to give some thought to what is meant by the term sustainable development.  One does not have to delve deeply into this subject to realise that it means different things to different people.   For example, if you put the phrase "sustainable development" into an internet search engine, as I did when preparing what I might say last week,  you will get a staggering 24.7 million hits or pages.   That was, of course, as at last week-and the figure is more than 25 million by now! 

So hotly debated is the concept of "sustainable development" that views have often become highly polarised.  For some, sustainable development is about technological solutions to pressing environmental and economic issues.  In this world view, science is given the status of a super hero-a saviour for issues such as global warming.  For others, it creates images of a future where, to control global warming, human lives are highly regulated by governments and individual choices are limited.  In this world, cars are banned, everyone travels in crowded forms of public transport and farmers revert to ploughing their fields by oxen.

Somewhere between these and many other divergent visions of the future, is a way forward. In 1987, the United Nations' World Commission on Environment and Development gave the first accepted definition.  The commission, chaired by the then Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, defined sustainable development as the ability of humanity "to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."  

More recently, the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa expanded the definition further.   The Johannesburg Declaration suggested that humanity had a "collective responsibility to advance and strengthen the interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars of sustainable development-economic development, social development and environmental protection-at the local, national, regional and global levels."

Both definitions are inherently vague.  They point to a series of issues-inter-generational equity, environmental degradation and economic growth to name but a few-without providing clear cut answers.  When looking at the so-called "three pillars" of the Declaration one can rightly ask if one pillar is more important than the others and whether solutions that might apply at a global level can also work at a national, regional or local level and vice-versa.   From an energy perspective, what might be right for New Zealand, with abundant natural resources, might not be right for a nation such as Singapore.   Equally, what might be right for New Zealand's largest city Auckland, may not be right for its smallest rural settlements.

Likewise, when discussing talk of "sustainable development" one needs to ask just what is being "sustained" and just what is being "developed"?   Are we sustaining the environment, communities or resources? And what is to be developed-societies, economies or people?  And equally importantly, over what time frame? Are we talking about 25 years, 50 years or 500 years?

I said at the outset that I would attempt a definition of "sustainable development."  As you can see, rather than a definition, I have instead suggested a number of  questions. The complex interplay between them, and many others one could easily consider, will produce many different answers.   Any and all of those "answers" could be correct, depending on the time frame applied, the decisions made and the trade offs that are applied.

I understand that the focus of this forum is on the challenges and opportunities of sustainable energy systems.   It would be very easy when discussing and debating such an issue and proposing possible solutions to head down a path that looked primarily at means of generating energy, both renewable and non-renewable.  I urge avoidance of such a trap and suggest that you remain aware of the wider issues at play. 

More than anything you need to retain a critical eye, to disavow simplistic answers and be prepared to negotiate and compromise.  In doing so, you need to also recognise and respect that we each of us have different values that may sometimes conflict. As three American academics in a issue of journal Environment recently noted: "Critique is nonetheless a vital part of the conscious evolution of sustainable development-a concept that, in the end, represents diverse local to global efforts to imagine and enact a positive vision of a world in which basic human needs are met without destroying or irrevocably degrading the natural systems on which we all depend."

What makes this gathering so special is the diverse range of voices it brings together and in that I offer a tribute to the organisers, Bayer New Zealand, the University of Auckland and the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO.

The 25 participants represent a diverse range of nations in the Asia-Pacific region , both in economic and political development and in geographic and population size.  Likewise, your individual backgrounds are equally diverse.  Some are budding engineers and scientists whilst others have backgrounds in commerce, economics, management, law, social science and resource management.  Some are postgraduate students, others are undergraduates and all are from a host of different cultural backgrounds.

But what unites you is your youth and the rigorous selection process that saw you selected to be here.  As young people you have the ability to see issues and perspectives afresh, to ask difficult questions and to frankly point out, as the old saying goes, that the emperor may have no clothes!  As the playwright George Bernard Shaw once said: "It's all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date."

And in that we can be thankful on two counts.  Such is the gravity of issues are our world currently faces that maybe, as Shaw puts it, we need a bit of "shocking".   But also because, and more importantly, in the fullness of time, you will inherit the Earth.

While respecting your differences, I urge you to work together in teams to find common solutions, bringing to the fore your diverse backgrounds, disciplines and knowledge.   As the Māori proverb or whakatauki has it:  Kaua e rangiruatia te ha o te hoe e kore to tatou waka e u ki uta, which translates as: Do not lift the paddle out of unison or our canoe will never reach the shore.

With that challenge, it gives me great pleasure to declare the 2009 Eco-Minds Sustainable Youth Development Forum open.

And with a sense of anticipation, I will close in New Zealand's first language Māori, by offering everyone greetings and wishing you all good health and fortitude in your endeavours. No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tēnā koutou katoa.