 Madameer, Henrik, Berane och alla av er är bra att vara med er. Jag har mycket att känna på, det är min hosamta, jag har blivit upp här. Water, som Anstofi sa, är en integrerad del av Gothenburgs liv. Det är en stad som är på väg, en stad som är en historisk röv. Det är en stad som är en port, en bra port. Hoppas att det är en grön port. Och det är en stad som är en nöjebaser, som det gick att vara. Jag var också nöjefisare, innan jag gått till skolan av ekonomi här i Gothenburg och sen till förmiddag. Jag är ute i världen och serve i den svenska regeringen och serve i den svenska regeringen i olika kapaciteter. Jag tror att det är bra att träffa här, i denna stad, för att diskutera en av de viktigaste frågorna, jag tror, de här gången, nämligen vatten. Jag ser på den här subjekt från ett globalt perspektiv och också gillar dig lite av flavor, eftersom jag har jobbat med vattenför många år. Jag var undersekretären för Humanitarian Affairs. Jag var responsivare för det emergency relief i de övriga 1990s och jag hade då ett livbesökning, experience i Somalia 1992. Jag vill inte beskriva de horrors som jag såg, men jag såg att barnen gick in infront av mig utanför dagarier, dysentery, dehydration och starvation också. Men vattenför vattenför vattenför eller vattenför vattenför var det som de gick in infront av mig. Jag sa på den här gången, 28 år, 25 år sen, att jag skulle fortsätta jobba med det. Jag tog det på i UN och jag tog det på i Sverige och jag startade vattenför vattenför i Sverige. Nu har vi en ny president av vattenför vattenför international här, Rob Skinner Kristianup, för jag tror att vi ska ge dem en plås. Det är en bra organisation och jag ger dem all support. Jag är en honorär ambassadör för den här organisationen. Jag har gjort en sak som jag tror att jag ska göra till er också. När jag var president av General Assembly så sa jag att jag skulle gick in infront av 193 nationer och jag ville verkligen göra en appeal av vatten. Jag började tala om vattenför vattenför vattenför men de var fortfarande tala om dem. Jag trodde att jag hade tillväxt. Jag tog upp en glass av vattenför som var tapvattenför och jag gjorde exakt det här. Jag sa, vet du, vet du att vad jag bara gjorde här var att ta en glass av tapvattenför och dricka det som det är. Det är en lösning för på den tiden, det här var 2005, 6, ungefär 950 miljoner människor. Detta är det som var det som var för 2000 barn som gick i dag eller vad det var i tiden. Och det är det som vi ska se. Jag träffade folk i den här möten som sa, jag remerar när du gick i glass och remerar oss av vad det är, den här lösningen av vattenför och vattenför. Så det har varit väldigt mycket en del av min professionell liv och jag var väldigt glada att lägga denna invitation. Och jag trodde att jag skulle ge dig några snapskott från min erfarenhet och sen komma till lite mer konceptuella frågor i nästa 10-15 minuter. Jag har bara fått en rapport från New York, de håller på att lägga mig. Jag läggs till UN i den senaste året. Men jag har fått en rapport den senaste natt från sekretär Gennas office, Antonija Guterres. Och han hade flyttat med helikopter över vad det var på en gång, det RLC i Russia. Och han sa att jag aldrig har nån gång i mitt liv en mer dramatisk illustration av en ekologisk diskussion. Med missmanagning av den här resursen, den här vattenlösa skivaren, att lägga runt denna land som korpsen av fiskande liv var en chock. Och suddenly, jag hade en flashback när jag såg den rapporten från Antonija Guterres, från den RLC där den var två dagar sedan. Jag hade en flashback när jag var medierad i den vatten i Darfur, för att någon gång jag gått runt den regionen och jag har också flyttat helikopter i den här area. Och det var över Lake Chad. Eller jag skulle röda att beskriva det som det som var remaining av Lake Chad. Det turned out, and it was a complete shock to me eleven years ago that 80% of the lake had disappeared. And it was just a horror sight. You saw the green moving in there and a brown area in the middle and flying over that area was to me the shock and was a description of that we in humanity still haven't come to the conclusion that we have to live in harmony with nature. That we have to accept that everything living is part of us. Whether it is animals or plants. The indigenous populations in Latin America, Canada, Sweden, Nordic countries know very much more the need to be in harmony with nature. My daughter, Emily, who is with me here not here but here now in Gothenburg asked me once when I came back from a negotiation in a conflict why don't you stop working with these stupid conflicts between people instead of starting a negotiation with nature. We need to have peace with nature. I still haven't been able to do that. Hard to see the other one on the other side, isn't it? Unless you stand up for this more wise approach that I think Gothenburg and perhaps Copenhagen today will symbolize by showing that you are truly wise cities and are aware of this need for I would say accepting responsibility. Maybe the most important word today in the world. Except another word that is equally important and that is the word together. I don't think we will be able to do anything unless we realize that we have to work together. So those were the two snapshots from shrinking lakes. Huge lakes. Another snapshot that I have only from two years ago was going to Vietnam. I was in Vietnam almost two years ago and would you need a glass of water over there, hey? You need a glass of water? I have one. I went to Mekong, the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. I thought this would be a green area where lots of fisheries were going on and agriculture. Did I ever make a mistake? What has happened is that the dams that are being built around Mekong have lowered the level of the Mekong River. But the serious effect is a dual one. Namely the water from the sea, from the ocean, comes into the freshwater. And by that stops the fisheries which is based on freshwater fishing. And the ground, the earth there is very porous so that the saltwater enters the ground and I saw many, many huge areas of brown rice fields because the saltwater had contaminated the grass. And the farmers that I interviewed going around there in that area said that their cattle was getting sick because they were eating the grass that was salty. So the cattle was sick and feeling very bad. And the sons of that family that I visited said we can't live here anymore we will move to the cities further in. So sea level rise is here and now it's not in 34 years time, it's happening now. And you can imagine this area around Mekong Delta is an area of 18 million people and when they start moving if that's the serious then you can imagine the social economic political consequences. I look at Bangladesh and India and Myanmar or Burma so I saw that with my own eyes. I saw sea level rise and the problems of the water resources with my own eyes. One thing that I think we need to be aware of also when it comes to water if I now want to give this global perspective is that water in so many cases is a scarce resource. And when there are scarce resources historically there are two ways of reacting for those who want those resources. One is to compete even fight about it and the other one is to cooperate around the scarce resource. And unfortunately I've seen far too many examples of fighting about it. I was mediating in the Darfur conflict as I said and the most horrible thing that I remember was that a way for the militia to chase away the population from a particular area was to throw a dead dog or dead goat in the well of a village and then of course within days people had to flee and they moved into the huge camps for internally displaced people. I asked myself how much of had use and joy did those people have of having a village without water. They couldn't move in there anyway so it was a lose lose proposition. People had to leave and nobody could take it over. I've also seen growingly how border conflicts can become very serious due to different interests of boundaries and the river crossing borders. You have on the one hand one country that needs to develop energy Tajikistan, Ethiopia and then you have another country which has very great interest in maintaining agriculture as they traditionally have Egypt and Uzbekistan and the tensions around these areas is extremely difficult. So I personally think I need an expression that I think will unfortunately be relevant for the future and that is what I call hydro diplomacy water diplomacy and my vision is that we will be innovative and make sure that we use water as a reason for cooperation rather than conflict. The young people here I just talked a while forward to one Julia, where are you Julia? From you Gothenburg? There you are. I gave you a task, a challenge and one of the things you should think about is how to develop projects that are mutually rewarding and making sure that you share resources. I worked so much with the conflicts in the Middle East from the classic Israel-Palestin conflict to Iran-Iraq war. Unfortunately we failed on Syria I would say due to the Security Council not being able to agree but I think the need for us to do confidence building in that part of the world is important and can you imagine for instance just an example of how water can be a positive factor if the water resources on the west bank occupied by Israel if the water resources on that west bank were fairly divided and shared. Now the Israeli settlers use four times more fresh water than the Palestinians. So they have their swimming pools and grass, fine green grass while the olive trees are dying in the Palestinian territory. I perhaps characterize it somewhat but I'm telling my Israeli friends why don't you share that more fairly can you imagine a better confidence building measure and people are showing that you accept the equal value of everybody. I make this point that a great challenge is to make sure that water becomes a positive force. Now I have now talked about the larger political economic social perspectives of water and hopefully also giving you a sense of urgency but I think I want to translate this as much as I can to something that you will be able to do and that is to make sure that you as much as possible now in this situation of scarcity go deeper into the issues of saving water or making sure that you have circular patterns there is so much waste and that you also identify the horrible effects of bad waste management. I've seen so many horrible rivers in the world. I've seen so many lakes destroyed so many coastal areas destroyed I've seen so much not seen it personal but the plastic in the sea which is horrible danger to the oceans there was a great oceans conference last week at the initiative of Fiji and Sweden I'm proud of that and we need definitely to look at how we how we exercise serious and responsible stewardship for water and here you have a very special responsibility because there is another global trend apart from the scarcity of water and I would say also climate change as an unfortunate structural problematic area to say the least but it is very important that we also see another trend now of which you are part many of you I think most of you namely the importance and the growing role of cities urban areas like Sweden the world is now Sweden was once in the 30s I think we had 75% of the population living in the rural areas and 20-25 in the cities now it's I can't I don't know the percentage in Sweden but I know in the world more than half of the world population live in urban areas in cities and the forecast for 2030 is up to 60-65 2050 probably 70% it's a bit difficult to do exact prognostication but anyway the trend is there so we will see more and more urban areas and unfortunately the movement is mainly people moving in poor countries into suburbs I would say slums of urban concentration areas and I have seen horrible things with enormously damaging effect on sanitation an issue for water aid with no toilets and very much open defecation which is euphemism for what you all know people doing it outside and this is a huge danger from the point of view of health but also a challenge for you as city planners and water experts to find methods that work in those environments where you have no municipality tax to speak about and where you don't in some cases even know who owns the land where the problems are so here is a problem of both finding ways that can be easily adapted to that situation but also can be collective solutions and of course less dependent on water because in Sweden I remember when I was a child you flushed the toilet and it was 8 to 10 liters of fresh drinking water that every time you flushed today is being brought down to what is it, 4 liters or something but still it's a waste and you can't imagine this in Africa in the drought areas or in India or China when you are supposed to set up a system for these huge urban areas so here of course we are fortunate in the two cities that will soon come on this stage Gothenburg and Copenhagen and we have good well functioning institutions we have a pretty good resource base and we have a pretty good awareness of accepting this responsibility but in so many other places in the world there is no such infrastructure there is no such knowledge and we have to understand in today's world that the problems of the rest of the world is indeed the problems for all of us so even if you now deal with the issues planning of this wonderful city and the cities that you represent still try to keep that international perspective because I believe in today's world that we must accept that there is very little difference between the global and the local the international and the national when I work at the UN with climate change with sustainable development with the migration and refugee issues which is a hot political issue for many countries as we know all around us I feel that we really can't make a distinction between national and international how can you make how can you find a national solution to climate change or to refugee flows it's logically impossible isn't it so my point is that a good international solution like the Paris Agreement which has to be implemented whatever the president of the United States now says the Paris Agreement is a good international formula good international solution which basically is in the national interest of member states can you imagine the day when we understand that the good international solution is a national interest if this could be recognized in the parliament like the US Congress we are at home we have reached what we really need to do take away the sharp line between national and international but I also claim and this will conclude my remarks I also claim that the way we who have societies which are based on strong institutions democracy societies to be fair societies without identifying groups as a problem ethnically or religiously if we can build up a society without corruption with belief in justice with belief in basic human rights what we then do and this is my conclusion after many years in international service building good societies at home is the best contribution you can make to international peace and security because if you have unstable societies unfair societies lack of respect of human rights then you are conflict prone it is in those countries where you see conflict so international national come together that's why I having served 23 years abroad 5 years now recently as deputy secretary even knowing that the United Nations is an organization which has weaknesses that we have reasons to be very very disappointed I still believe that we need to really stand up for good international cooperation we need to stand up for strong good democratic institutions we have to increase the trust in our societies there is so much of trust deficit in the world and by doing that by doing the work well as you do with something which makes life better for your community you in fact also do something which is better for your nation and for your region and for the world so we are all in all this together and I will end on that the word together thank you very much thank you