 Thank you very much indeed. It's a great pleasure to welcome you all here. I'm Andrew Norton, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development IED, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to the seventh Barbara Wood lecture. Before moving on to that, there are a couple of pieces of the inevitable housekeeping. There are no fire alarms planned, so if you hear a fire alarm, which will be a continuous alarm, please follow the fire exit signals and make your way to the fire assembly points. Again, helpful graphics behind. The fire assembly points outside Somerset House on the Victoria embankment underneath Waterloo Bridge. I think the gents are to the right and the ladies' bathrooms are to the left, so I think that concludes the housekeeping. The purpose of these events is to honour and celebrate outstanding women in the field of sustainable development, and in doing so to remember IID's founder Barbara Wood. The short film you've just seen introduced Barbara and the extraordinary work that she did. A particular highlight of that, of course, was the leadership she gave to the Stockholm conference on the human environment in 1972, and she co-authored the report for that with René Dubois, which was published as Only One Earth, Notes on the Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet, which is an incredibly farsighted and prescient text for the time, and laid the foundations for much that came afterwards. In 1971, Barbara Wood founded IID, which now is a policy research organisation working in partnership with over 100 organisations across the world to promote sustainable development and to help to effect positive change at local, national and global levels. Barbara Wood was an influential economist with a deep concern for people in the environment ahead of a time in many ways. I have the great honour of introducing this year's speaker, Dr Gruhalen Bruntland. Speakers for earlier Barbara Wood lectures have included Dr Bruntland's fellow member of the Elders Global Leadership Group, Mary Robinson, who gave the first Barbara Wood lecture in 2006. Others have included Fatima Denton, who is here with us tonight, so welcome Fatima. Connie Hedigard, Christiana Figueres, Lindy Weisysulu. The last speaker was Deborah Roberts, speaking to the urban agenda two years ago. But there is something special about being able to welcome Dr Bruntland to this year's event. Her career has a very special resonance for Barbara Wood's legacy. Let me say a few words about that. Barbara was, as the film showed, a driving force in recognising both the fragility of our world and the key role of social justice in effective action to preserve human and planetary systems. In short, the need for what we now call sustainable development. Nobody has played a greater role in putting these ideas at the centre of our thinking on development than Dr Bruntland. But before giving a fuller introduction to our distinguished speaker, let me say a few words of introduction to Rebecca Greenspan, who is the chair of IID's board who will moderate the discussion after Dr Bruntland has spoken. We're so delighted that you can be with us today, Rebecca. Rebecca is usually based in Madrid, where she is the secretary general of the Ibero American Secretariat. Rebecca was formerly a UN under secretary general and associate administrator of the United Nations Development Program, UNDP. She served as vice president of Costa Rica between 1994 and 1998. Costa Rica is of course itself an incredible leadership example of sustainable development among many amazing things. It's done incredible work in more than any other country in reversing the process of forest and tree cover loss. So amazing to have Rebecca here also because of that background. Rebecca is recognised as a global leader in promoting sustainable development and has helped focus attention perhaps particularly on issues of youth and inequality and gender, especially in Latin America. Now let me turn to introducing tonight's speaker, Dr Gruhalen Bruntland. There's so much you could say, Dr Bruntland is a path breaker in so many ways and one of the really outstanding leadership figures in sustainable development. Having trained as a medical doctor, she entered politics and served as environment minister in Norway for five years in the 1970s. She then became Norway's first female prime minister in 1981, a role that she served for two further terms later in the 1980s and in the 1990s. From 1998 to 2003 she was director general of the World Health Organization where she was known for her outstanding leadership but also for a firm commitment to ensuring that policy and practice were informed by scientific research and evidence. She was a founding member of the elders global leadership group focusing on promoting peace and human rights founded by Nelson Mandela and is the current deputy chair of the elders as well. But in the context of today's talk perhaps the most relevant part of Dr Bruntland's distinguished career is the role she played in leading the world commission on environment and development between 1983 and 1987 when the commission published its landmark report, Our Common Future. Our Common Future is often remembered for giving us the kind of standard understanding and definition of sustainable development in ways which led clearly and directly to the structure of the sustainable development goals adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015. Reading the report again at the weekend I was struck by how much more the text in the process gave us. The notion that economic, social and environmental challenges are inextricably linked. Also the model of an inclusive process for such a commission seeking input and dialogue on a global scale and above all perhaps the sense of moral duty that this generation should have to generations yet to come in our stewardship of the planet and the environment. But also there is firmly throughout the text the view of development as a universal human endeavour applying to all countries and all peoples and it's as being about the great challenges, the common human challenges that we all face in ensuring that our common future can be a hopeful one. It was a remarkable breakthrough moment. We have all seen over the last couple of years great challenges to global progress on sustainable development after if you like what felt like the breakthrough moment of 2015 with the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals major challenges of a geopolitical nature over the last couple of years. I think it couldn't be a better moment therefore to return to the vision of our common future and the inspiration it provides. Dr Brentland, it's a great honour and pleasure to have you here to deliver the 2018 Barbara Ward lecture. Thank you so much for that kind introduction and for revisiting Barbara Ward, which was great to see the film. It is indeed a great pleasure and a privilege to be here this evening. Barbara Ward was a seminal figure in the movement to foster greater consensus and consciousness of our collective responsibility also towards the environment. She helped inspire and formulate a holistic and humane way of thinking about the world and its people. I even had the pleasure of meeting her in the 60s when she was a visiting scholar at Harvard as my husband was while I studied at the Harvard School of Public Health. When I chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development in the 1980s, I and my fellow commissioners could benefit from Barbara's work as we made our definition of sustainable development. In particular, her 1972 book, Only One Earth, co-written with René Dubal. One of its key quotes continues to inspire me today. The careful husbandry of the earth is seen a common one for the survival of the human species and for the creation of decent ways of life for all the people of the world. Sustainable development has been the guiding principle of my career and wider engagement in public life for over three decades. So I want to take this opportunity to emphasize a point that may seem like a semantic footnote, but in fact has great political significance. I want to talk about sustainable development, not sustainability. The latter word is becoming commonplace in corporate vocabulary, deployed in mission statements and glossy reports as proof that businesses are committed to acting in a responsible and ethical manner. But taken literally, sustainability simply means that a business model or political system is capable of being maintained to deliver profits or electoral success. The global arms trade has demonstrated great sustainability in the decades since the Cold War. For example, identifying new markets and refining its offerings to suit the changing needs of its clients. Now, forgive my cynicism, I do know that many people who use the term sustainability do so with the best of intentions. But its inherent ambiguity is why I always refer to sustainable development. As with Barbara Ward, my value base and vision has been social democracy and the belief that we must meet the basic needs of all and secure equal opportunity, dignity and human rights for all. As threats mounted to the environment on which we all depend and the need to protect planet earth became a major concern, I found myself in the role of minister environment in Norway in the 1970s. I became deeply involved, engaged and convinced in pursuing a pattern of development that could benefit everyone, protect our planet and promote peace. I continue this agenda as Prime Minister in the 1980s while I also chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development at the invitation of UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuevaire. I'm glad to say that our 1987 report, Our Common Future became a landmark document that brought sustainable development to the attention of presidents, prime ministers and finance ministers and thereby into the mainstream of policymaking nationally and internationally. It initiated the Rio conference in 1992 and continues to influence global thinking today. Of course, the world has changed immensely and immeasurably over the past 30 years. The ideological struggles between capitalism and communism have been consigned to the history books and the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain are mercifully fading memories. Issues that in the mid-80s were still viewed as fringe from feminism, racism and sexual equality to climate change and biodiversity are now taken seriously. At the very highest levels of state power. Equally importantly, we are increasingly realizing that we must address these issues as a whole, conscious of how they intersect with and influence each other and no longer keeping them in silos. Today we have a critical window of opportunity to decarbonize by 2050 in order to reach the goal of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius. With a few regrettable and conspicuous exceptions, world leaders now recognize the severity of climate change and the damage rising temperatures and sea levels, hurricanes, droughts and other extreme weather events can inflict on homes, on livelihoods, on infrastructure. At the same time globalization has transformed economic models, supply change, labour markets, industrial relations and migratory flows. Millions of people worldwide now work in the so-called gig economy, facilitated by digital technology while advances in robotics and artificial intelligence are fundamentally transforming everything from manufacturing and heavy industry to education and the service sector. Those of us who believe in sustainable development now need to ensure that our own models and approaches keep pace with these changing realities and remain relevant to the younger generations. But we must also identify strands of continuity. The concept of our common future still resonates. From fighting terrorism to managing migration, from developing new methods of environmentally sustainable economic growth, to promoting tolerance in multicultural societies, we will only make progress if we act in concert with one another, not just competition. None of this is possible without a strong, effective and principled system of international rules and institutions to ensure fairness lies at the heart of governance and decision making. We all need to maintain and inspire strong support for the United Nations. Over the past four decades, I have had the opportunity and honour to serve on various UN committees as well as heading up one of its flagship agencies, the World Health Organization. Today, I am happy to work alongside two former Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon. As part of the elders, the group of independent former leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela to work for peace, justice and human rights. Throughout all of these varied roles, it has been clear to me that the UN is an indispensable player. Without it, we would not have the Paris Agreement on climate change, nor would we have the sustainable development goals. The two key weapons in our collective arsenal in the fight for a better world. But being indispensable does not mean the UN should be immune from challenges, criticism or reform. An institution created over seven decades ago must recognise and respond to shifts in power and wealth over that period, as well as the profound changes in technology and communications that have altered how we as citizens view and engage with public institutions. The challenge to the UN is now far greater than just trying to maintain peace and security among nations. Or containing superpower rivalry, it is to develop inclusive, fair and viable solutions to the economic, social, humanitarian and environmental problems facing the whole planet. The importance of reaching out to and to engage different sectors of society has always been at the top of my political agenda. From the start of my work on the World Commission on Environment and Development, I insisted that we listened to as a wide range of voices as possible. We convened public meetings in every country we visited, reaching out to academics, trade unions, businesses, women's groups and civil society, as well as to politicians. This was not always a popular move, especially in countries that were not full democracies at that time, including Brazil and Indonesia. But we insisted on it. In fact, I said we would not come. We knew it was vital that our commission heard from grassroots voices, as well as ministers and their advisers in the corridors of power. I believe we did make a difference and reassured those brave activists, many of whom ran the risk of imprisonment, exile or worse, that their opinions mattered and that they should continue with their struggle for liberty and justice. I am also convinced that this careful methodological and inclusive approach helped pave the way for future milestones that brought sustainable development into the mainstream, including the Rio Earth Summit in 92, of course, a conference we recommended to be held five years after our report. The Cairo Conference on Population and Family Planning in 1994, the Beijing Women's Conference in 1995, the Millennium Development Goals, although they were weak on the environment, and we can speak about that later. Of course, the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. 2015 was really the breakthrough year for sustainable development and a culmination of the hard work that so many of us had undertaken for so many years. I was in Paris at the time of the final negotiations at the COP 21 summit in December 2015 and was struck by the determination and optimism of the activists. Many of them young people to deliver a better future to the generations to come. The spirit was all the more impressive given the awful terrorist attacks Paris had suffered just a few weeks previously. I remember taking part in a public event where the mayor and Hidalgo told the audience, Paris a fait sa part, il n'est plus temps de se taire, which translate Paris has done its bit, this is not the time to be silent. Her words continue to resonate with me today and of course they apply not only to Paris but to the whole world. As we all know, the global political climate has changed dramatically in the past two and a half years. The continuing fallout from the financial crisis has led to a growing backlash against globalization and a resurgence of populist, protectionist and xenophobic politics. Much of the hope and unity we saw in Paris in 2015 has been replaced by fear and despondency, but also I'm glad to say by a determination to protect our hard-won gains in the face of this new crude and narrow political vision. Brexit and the election of Donald Trump are just two prominent examples, but we can see comparable trends across Europe, including Scandinavia and further afield. The crude, simplistic and bigoted politics of populism are the complete antithesis of everything I have worked for in public life. They exert a malign influence on policy on discourse, consciously scorning the principles of solidarity and justice that lie at the heart of sustainable development. They also deliberately seek to intimidate and bully dissenting voices, particularly those of women and minorities, including by the cowardly cloak of anonymity provided by social media. This is why those of us who still believe in solidarity and justice cannot stay silent in these troubled and turbulent times. We must speak out. One of the most egregious examples of the damage wrought by isolationist populism is the decision of President Trump to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. As my fellow Elder Mary Robinson said at the time, this makes the United States a rogue state on climate issues. And when so many people still look to that country for global leadership, the consequences of such a myopic and misguided decision will be felt worldwide. However, the reaction to President Trump's decision, both inside the US and abroad, paradoxically gives us new hope. Below the federal level, US states, cities, businesses and ordinary citizens have made it clear they reject the administration's climate policy and are committed to working to make Paris succeed. Partly this is gratifying evidence of a continued affirmation of global citizenship by millions of Americans. But it also suggests recognition by business and local political leaders that pursuing policies that deliver sustainable development and climate action is in their own interest and those of their constituents and consumers, both economically and electorally. To go back to the words of Madam Hidalgo, this is no time for any of us to be silent. We all have a responsibility to each other, to our community and to our planet. This is a basic democratic assessment which informs and underpins my belief in social democracy. But in fact, when we talk about climate and sustainable development, it transcends partly politics and left or right. It is a matter of human survival. When young people ask me how they can make a difference in the face of such overwhelming global challenges, my answer is often very simple. Go out and vote. Take a stand. Engage. Too often in the media we hear people including many who really are old enough to know better claiming that it doesn't make any difference whether or not you vote. That all parties are the same and all politicians basically are liars and crooks. This cynical and irresponsible approach is just as bad as those willfully perverse voices who deny that climate change is a reality. Voting matters, politics matters and civic responsibility matters. Here in Britain you are celebrating 100 years since women got the vote. In Norway we got there a little earlier. But in both cases think how different the role of women in society would be if they were still denied the right to participate in elections. In his searing study of human courage and cover eyes and enemy of the people, the Norwegian dramatist Hendrik Ibsen gives the following words to one of his characters and I quote. A community is like a ship. Everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm. Norway like Britain is a seafaring nation so I hope you allow me to extend this metaphor a little. Our global ship is currently tossing and turning through stormy and dangerous waters. But is anyone prepared to take the helm and steer a course that will bring us to safety, whatever hardships this may entail? And is anyone listening to the voice from the crow's nest, warning of fresh dangers on the horizon? Or are we huddled below decks, either waiting for someone else to take the initiative or fooling ourselves that all is fine? The waters will calm themselves on their own and their own accord and there is no need to trim the sails or change the course. Each of us in our own way needs to be prepared to take the helm in an appropriate and realistic way. From our local community to the national and international level. If we are prepared to do so, we will find that a chart exists to see us through the storm. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals cover all aspects of human life and development from health, education and the environment to peace, justice, security and equality. Unlike the Millennium Development Goals, they importantly apply to all countries and not just the developing world. So every head of state, every government and every citizen has a responsibility to ensure that these goals are met. The SDGs are a repos to the view that prosperity and security lies in putting one country first above others, or walling itself off from its neighbors or indulging in misplaced nostalgia for a bygone age. Instead of reducing international relations to business transactions and trade wars, the goals are significant achievements that show the power of multilateral diplomacy and states coming together in their collective self-interest. And crucially, the goals and the work towards their implementation are not static. As with the Paris Agreement, they are organic and evolving instruments that must increase momentum and ambition to be successful. Much of this work is technical, scientific and highly specific. Without reliable and robust measurements, it will be impossible to judge whether sufficient progress is being made across the 169 indicators for the 17 SDGs, or for the 193 different nations and nationally defined contributions of signatories to the Paris Accord. Just as important, however, is continued political pressure to tackle the underlying causes of the problems these SDGs seek to address. Poverty, discrimination, conflict and inequality. In fact, I believe that if we do not put inequality at the heart of the global development agenda, we are doomed to failure. We need courage to confront the vested political business and economic interests who seek to maintain our current unequal order, and grasp the opportunity that the move to a low-carbon economy offers us to rectify current inequalities. We need to promote agreement, inclusivity and consensus. And economic to achieve policies that work for the common good rather than narrow self-interest across both the public and the private sectors. And we need to inspire hope across all sectors of society, especially young people, letting them know that their voices will be heard, their experiences acknowledged and their ideas anchored into the policy-making process. Now, according to the most recent inequality report by Oxfam, 82% of the wealth generated last year went to the richest 1% of the global population. By any measure, this is a scandal. A wholesale paradigm shift is required in international economic and fiscal policy towards a holistic approach that values access to health, education and justice as driver of a sustainable and green pattern of growth. We also have to deal with culture change and shift the practices both seen and unseen that hold back women, young people, sexual minorities, people with disability and other vulnerable and marginalized groups from developing their full potential. To do this, the voices of the people most affected by inequality must be heard in the debates that now follow. And in those debates, we all need to confront the challenge of unsustainable lifestyles, production and consumption patterns and the impact of population growth on our planet's future. Just look at the current debate about the use of plastics in everyday life. We can all take steps to address our individual patterns of behavior, but we also need to put pressure on leaders to deliver viable, systemic and sustainable change at scale and at speed. Ahead of the Rio Plus 20 summit in 2012, I served on the UN high-level panel on global sustainability set up by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon right after the breakdown in Copenhagen, who today, of course, is one of my fellow elders. Our report emphasized a critical point, the need to measure and to price what really matters in terms of climate change and human development. The marketplace has to reflect the full ecological and human costs of economic decisions and establish price signals that render transparent the consequences of action, but also in action. And specifically we argued that pollution, including carbon emissions, can no longer be free. Subsidies should be made transparent and phased out for fossil fuels by 2020. Now we are not far from that, but this was in 2012. New ways be devised to measure development beyond GDP. Ironically these are words for word the same recommendations that we presented in our common future in London in 1987. On one level it is understandable to feel frustrated at the slow level of progress made across the decades and the fact that the same diagnosis is repeated in different guises and formats. On the other hand it is also proved that our initial diagnosis was correct and has been borne out by subsequent events. To put it bluntly we know what we need to do, we just need to get on and do it. I cannot emphasize enough how urgent this is. We are at the tipping point for the world's climate. If meaningful action is not taken now, the damage to our ecosystem could be irreparable. A similarly blunt challenge however is that we need to work on how we'll pay for it. Financing for climate action and sustainable development remains a critical question, especially in an age of public austerity. There is growing recognition that limited funds must be used strategically as incentives to unlock greater private investment flows. Share risks and expand access to the building blocks of prosperity including modern energy services. It is also vital that poor countries are given the financial support they need to address climate change and move to renewable energy. This is a matter of climate justice. The poorest countries in the world did not create the problem but they are suffering first and worst from its impact. This means investing in and creating a favorable environment for sustainable technologies that will create jobs and support the poor, improve health and education and build more resilient and equitable societies. Private investment and private philanthropy have critical roles to play. In fact, the need for private sector engagement is stronger than ever. We cannot solve global challenges without the resources, expertise, technology and brain power of business. The old-fashioned idea that I met in Davos 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago even, that the business sector is somehow exempt from being responsible is now buried in the past. Now all serious business leaders know that their companies are part of the solution and that their employees and customers require positive and determined action for good. Nevertheless, all this being said, the public sphere remains a critical place to set the policy agenda and drive forward change. Public policies are needed to stimulate markets, to remove barriers, level the playing field and establish clear objectives and targets for new green industries and technologies. Public policies are also needed to ensure democratic accountability, respect for human rights and safeguarding the interests of vulnerable groups in society, including women, their empowerment in minority groups and indigenous communities. Now, over my long life I have learned that public policy changes only when the politics of taking action changes and when bold initiatives come to the fore. That happens when citizens get involved, when they vote, when they march and when they themselves stand for office. One of the most important areas of public policy is of course health. You might expect me to say that as a medical doctor and a former director general of the WHO. But this is not special pleading. When you think about it it is just stating the obvious. Without a healthy global population there can be no development sustainable or otherwise. This is why health must be seen as a public good with responsibility falling on the public sphere, not private finance or multinational corporations for its delivery. This holistic sense of public health and its intimate and intricate links to wider social issues inform my vision for the World Health Organization and continue to guide my work as a member of the elders. As part of our wider efforts to support the SDGs, the elders have for the past two years been campaigning for universal health coverage. UHC means that everyone receives the quality health services they need without suffering financial hardship. Now delivering on UHC offers employment and economic opportunities particularly for women and youth while furthering the overarching objective of ending poverty. But again if we only view UHC in its own silo we will never make progress. Here in Britain you will celebrate the 70th anniversary of your national health service this year. It is no coincidence that the NHS shares its anniversary with another cherished product of the post war settlement, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The very first article of this seminal text states all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. If ever a sentence needed to be loudly proclaimed on every street corner, in every school classroom, workplace and public square it is this one. It is a simple and powerful rejection of racism, hate speech, fake news and the politics of division. Let this be our load star as following the words of Barbara Ward we strive for what she said the creation of decent ways of life for all the people of the world. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'm not going down. No, take the central seat. Aren't you the moderator? You are the moderator, you should be in the center. Are you sure? We had a discussion with Andy. I've seen different solutions. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for Dr Brutland for that inspirational speech. Every profession in the field has their heroes and superstars. Dr Brutland is the hero of all of us working in development. Thank you so much for having you here. It's incredible to think that 30 years ago nobody used to speak about sustainable development until the report. I am now part of a global commission on the future of work put together by ILO. When they asked us in the commission what we want to see from the report, we all said that we wanted something like the Brutland report. We don't know how to do that yet. Thank you so much. Dr Brutland, I was rereading the chairman's forward of the report. I was struck by how important it is at present to remember some of them. Let me just read to the public some of the phrases that you put forward there. One is, I quote, perhaps our most urgent task today is to persuade nations of the need to turn to multilateralism. I think that we all feel today multilateralism is also at stake in many of the things we are saying. You said rightly so that the SDGs and climate change are a triumph of multilateralism. That's why we need to take those agendas forward because they are right now, as we said today in the board, the only narrative that is calling for collective action in the world. All the other narratives are for polarizing and fragmenting the world. These are the only narrative. So it's not only a development agenda. It's really the most important political agenda, as you said. Another phrase, if we do not succeed in putting our message of urgency through to today's parents and decision makers, we risk undermining our children's fundamental right to a healthy, life-enhancing environment. Life-enhancing, we should use that term much more, I think, today. So thank you again, Dr. Brutlen, it's a privilege to hear you. And I open the floor for the questions of the public. So you have the floor, we have two mics that are rotating here. So you have this here and that one. We will take three questions first, and then I will give you the floor. Please say your organisation or name. Thank you. Can you hear? No? It should be on, apparently. I'm Tamsen Barton and I'm a trustee of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Thank you so much for an incredibly inspiring speech. It's absolutely brilliant to look back and be inspired by all this effort over the decades, and it makes us feel we know we can progress more from there. But getting deeply practical and facing the challenges that are involved, you referred to UN reform and the importance of that happening. You obviously were head of WHO, so you probably have a very good idea of the sorts of challenges that are involved. And you've referred to the way in which multilateralism is at the moment very much under attack and on the run. So in that context, what do you think would make the biggest difference to the achievement of the sustainable development goals in the way of UN reform? Thank you. Do we have there, Liz? Here. Hello, Ben Sambrook from Well Pencil. My question follows on, actually. Thank you very much again. You've covered just about everything, and then you said that we knew the answers way back when, and we just need to get on with it. And you also started off by saying that we needed to safeguard the United Nations, and you talked about artificial intelligence. I met a guy a couple of years ago who was doing some work on the West Coast fisheries policy in California, and they analyzed how fishermen worked, how fishing communities worked, how fish worked on the individual level, not on a school of fish, but how an individual fish worked. And they chucked it all into a great big pile of algorithms, and they came out with a sort of Uber fisheries policy that you could use to have sustainable fish stocks in 30 years' time. So do you think that in maybe 10 or 5 or 20 years' time, the United Nations might be run by artificial intelligence? OK, another one. There is one there on the back. The lady. Hi, I'm Liz Hutchins from Friends of the Earth. It was a brilliant speech. Thank you very much. You said that change happens when citizens get involved. Can you give some examples of when you think people getting involved, maybe in protests, or the voices of civil society has really shifted really big debates that you've been involved in? OK, so. I'll start answering your question there because it's directly now. You can use an example that happened just in Norway a few years ago. The new Conservative government was careful in many areas, but they took a risk. They suggested to give doctors the right to say no to women who came to seek abortion. Although we had had a law on abortion on demand since 1978, this happened 2013, and it wasn't taking away the rights, but it was again putting women into the situation where they cannot feel certain when they enter a door with a doctor sign on if they are going to be pushed out or not. Norway has been quite peaceful now for many years. Women started marching the streets more than they had for about 30 or 40 years, and they stepped down within weeks. The government gave up that initiative. It's a very direct and precise example of what I'm thinking about. But there are other examples. Although there has been tragedy in the aftermath, think back to Cairo when we were all sitting watching the square full of people protesting their system. The system was changed, but unhappily that time it certainly didn't only give good results, but it still shows many such examples there are that when people move and people are willing to push, we have it also the nuclear campaigns in the 1980s. People were marching against nuclear weapons, and it did have an effect on many issues. Now, then when you asked me the question about what kind of human reform would help promote sustainable development, I wish I knew, because as elders, three or four years ago, we looked into together, analysed, what are there now on the UN agenda or in the framework of what can happen in New York, that there is a chance for a breakthrough. And of course, several of us have been through it. Coffiana, not least, you know, in the middle of a reform process, where I was also part of his panel on challenges and change. He pushed for reform. We got responsibility to protect. But many of the other suggestions, including change in the Security Council, etc., the forces against change were so strong, and it was crisscrossing, of course, the 193 countries. So it became stalemate. Now, but we, I think we had a part in an important thing that happened. The new Secretary General was for the first time elected after having had public or open hearings in the UN. And we did play a role together with others, allied with others, to push for that change. And we got that one change, and it is clear, we would not have had the present Secretary General, I think, unless those open public hearings had happened. It changed the atmosphere, it changed the conditionalities around. And I think, well, we have a good Secretary General, and he had to prove himself, you know, a number of questions from many people, so it did help. Now, then artificial intelligence, I did mention this, you know, in my speech, because I'm aware that things are happening that grow 79 years old, doesn't fully understand. I only know that it's important enough that unless we take it seriously, and unless we take this up with a young generation who do understand it, then we may really lose out. So maybe. But you know, when you talk about fish, I have to give you a share one experience. My minister of fisheries in about 1987 came up to me in the parliament building, in the parliament room. You know, we have a round room like this, and in the behind there, he pulled me aside and said, grow, do you know what the experts say? That we have to reduce the cod quota by 75%. They have now looked at the stocks, they have looked, you know, at what is necessary from a sustainability point of view. And so I said, well, that, well, this is going to be a challenge. But, you know that this is what we have to do. Oh, he went pale, you know. I think somehow he was from the north of Norway. And he, for him, the fishing, the fishermen and the fish of the coastal Norway were so central to development that he couldn't imagine we could do it. So I said, sorry, this is new times. When the experts tell us that we have to reduce the quota by 75%, this is exactly what we will do. So you can do it without artificial intelligence. We will take three more, but with respect to artificial intelligence, dear doctor. You know, you said all your speech was about values and ethics. You know, that, you know, we have to surround artificial intelligence also with ethics and values. So let's take three more questions. Here, great. Donal, you have that right there. Greta Fidesen from the Children's Investment Fund Foundation. You mentioned the role of young people and how important they are. It would be interesting to hear your views on what impact can they have on some of the changes that we want to see for the future, including universal health coverage. In many of the developing countries, half of the population is below the age of 18. What is their role? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the lovely speech. She spoke a lot about the value of multilateralism, and I believe that in the next hour or so the US is expected to say that they're leaving the Human Rights Council. And I wonder how you think the international community can best react to an act like that. Thank you. Charlotte Middlehouse from China Dialogue, and thank you again for a wonderful speech. You said that decarbonising our economies is going to be fundamental to tackling inequality and that inequality must be at the centre of our move towards development. You gave a very helpful specific example of tackling fossil fuel subsidies by 2020, and I was wondering if you could give another example of what countries can do to decarbonise their economies faster. Let me again start with answering her question. This was the third. Yes. Well, you know, I said we have to price what matters. So you have to use the economic mechanisms in the way you have taxation in every country. I don't think there is any other way to get to the goals than to certainly use economic mechanisms as well in addition to legal regulatory aspects. So that's why fossil subsidies, you know, is contrary completely to what we need and we need to price coal. I mean, the tax on coal has gained increasing support. Every economist knows that this is the only way. But it has also gained much more traction now in many governments and cities. CO2 taxation has increased in many, many areas. It's improving in that sense. So, but so you need both, you know, I mean, you have to in the transportation sector. You have to make it possible for people to bicycle. You have to make it possible for people to be able to afford buying electric cars. And we and in Norway, we did some years ago, maybe now seven, eight years ago, took away. We have high taxes on cars, took away all of it on electric cars. What happened? Well, we are the country with the highest number of electric cars anywhere. In fact, I think without Norway, Tesla will probably not have survived. So it is, but you need to use that kind of mechanisms and to be able to do so. You have to have a majority in a parliament that understands the issues and you have to have sufficient and knowledge and awareness among people that they understand enough, you know, the civil society, the voters. You need to have that kind of educational background. I mean, awareness about what's necessary and the politicians have to speak out. They have to dare to say what is necessary to young as to young people. Now, did I jump you? No, no, I was just wondering this was. That was the second. Oh, yes, it was human rights. Well, I didn't even know. I mean, I haven't seen the news in the last hours. But nothing surprises me anymore. With regard to what can happen. And I mean. The US in many ways has been one of the leading actors on human rights. Not not. I haven't always agreed with them on everything they have done. But they have always seen themselves as a leading voice on human rights. And so it makes it even worse when when that happens. However, it is just one more signal in the same direction of isolationism. And it's unbelievable. And frankly, I don't. It cannot continue. I hope. But no, none of us know what I mean. You know, democracy has many weaknesses. But we don't have a better alternative. So. Maybe it takes more than four years. But I'm hoping no. You know, for people to realize that there is a better and another way. Now then the young people. I mean. I mean. The problem of. I mentioned also that we need to be. Aware of. The growth in population. You know, for many years, people haven't spoken much about it. And one of the reasons why. Is that. The knowledge base. Scientifically and with regard to social and health issues. Is that we know what happened in the rich world. That as women and families. Got opportunities. Access to family planning. And I hope. You know, knew that most of their children would survive. Then further, you know, reproduction went down. And and population stabilized in all of our countries. And it is happening in big parts of the world today. But not everywhere. And I mean, it is for young people in Africa. It is a challenge. That they are so many. And that the services, the level of, you know. How can they manage health enough sufficient health care. They must and they universal health coverage is a must. Because without it, we won't get to that level of. That we have in our richer countries. But also education and employment opportunities, everything. When you have such an explosion, but in any case. Young people are the ones to face the world and their future. This is why we must listen to them and we must make them part of the solution. They must go out and do what they think is right. And they share on social media. Not only hate speech, but they share each other's destinies also. In the positive way that social media has helped us. Okay, let's go for the last round. There and there. Ah, you have the mic. Sorry, I didn't see. It's on, yes. Dr. Baldwin, thank you very much. It's Mark Lodge from the International Network for Cancer Treatment and Research. Someone once said that the difference between involvement and commitment is like the English breakfast. The hen is involved, but the pig is committed. I'm thinking about that because it's... I didn't get that. I'm thinking about that because it takes a long time, often, to reach a particular stage. It took 15, 20 years to get as far as the MDGs, which were rightly praised for a new era with the millennium. For those of us in cancer, the MDGs didn't do much because non-communical diseases weren't really treated for that. But never mind, another 15 years we've got the Sustainable Development Goals. Is there a lesson that we have to learn that sometimes meaningful changes take a long time, and so people who are actually interested in this have to really be ready for the long haul? Absolutely. I was so often asked. Let's say the report came in 1987. Already like 1988, 1989, journalists started asking me, why has the world not changed already? And I continued having these questions decade after decade. And I explained generally two things. Yes, a number of things have happened. They have. But much more needs to happen. And then as the Sustainable Development Goals finally came in 2015, I said maybe we should look around and the climate agreement as well, and think that 28 years after the report, we have these two agreements. Maybe it isn't so strange that nearly 200 countries with so different backgrounds, historically, culturally, economically, couldn't turn around in just three or five or even 10 years and come to that degree of common understanding that it requires to be able to agree on these kinds of complicated documents and commitments. So, yes, we need to have patience, but we also need to speak out about what is necessary and don't lean back. Because unless we speak out and unless we continue pushing, it won't take 28 years, but it will take 50 years. So, you know, learning the lesson is lean forward, go on with it because we don't have no unnecessary time to lose. Yes, thank you. I'm Paul Ekins from University College London Institute for Sustainable Resources. Early on in your speech, you talked about equality of opportunity, dignity and human rights for all. And I don't suppose there's a single person in this room who wouldn't echo the desirability of that. But you then called it social democracy. And in country after country, I guess I'm like many people had thought that we were kind of on a sort of trajectory towards that universality of values. And I've been rudely awakened as with lots of other people over the last couple of years. And country after country has turned against social democracy, as you yourself have acknowledged in your talk. And I wonder as a politician among many other things, why do you think that is? You know, when I spoke about social democracy, I gave you part of my life history, my values and Barbara Wards, which is why I mentioned she also came from social democracy. And so it's part of my story. It's part of hers. But I also said that by now, because it's a question of human survival and so on, you now have, you know, this is a question for left and right, irrespective also of parties, which is the broader issues, as you say, of universality. Let me use my own country as the best example, the one I know best. In Norway, when we had a Conservative Prime Minister, the second woman Prime Minister in 2013, it was the first time since 1981 with a Conservative leader in Norway. She had some very difficult years in her party losing elections before that. And I think maybe Neely gave up, but she is a tough person. So she stood up and she changed her party's profile. She said, let us talk about people, not money. In Norwegian that is men's like in German, you know. Menusker, not millioner or milliarder. So she made a new slogan. She said, we are focused on people, not just budgets and taxation and money. So what has happened in my opinion, in my country is, the Conservatives that I knew in the 70s and 80s, they are gone. My deputy leader once said something that I was very furious about. He said, we are all social democrats. He said that in 1981. He was a good speaker and he thought that was a nice, interesting, quotable sentence. But I told him, why on earth can you say such a thing? Give away our values. He is not alive anymore, but I know that he would share my opinion. He had already seen it happening. He had been in parliament longer than me. He was very young when he was a new parliamentarian. So he died like 15 years ago already. But meanwhile, what he said, he had seen already. And now I have seen it in the form that in Norway there is much more consensus now about issues that we fought hard about in the 1980s. I had to stand up in the 1980s and fight the Conservative leader because he wanted to start privatisation of the Norwegian Health Service. I was furious. I gave all in the TV debates with him. And who won? Basically, the Labour Party and my argument won. The Conservative side gave up to try to undermine the Norwegian Health Service. They have moved to be much more like social democrats because that's the only way they can win majority in my country. Now, so that I think is part of the explanation. In history, the social democrats have pushed for a number of important systematic changes and reforms in European countries and certainly in the Scandinavian ones have been the architects, the others have taken it on. So that has undermined, it has diversified, you know, into more parties and more also no real Conservative party as we had 40 years ago. OK. Last? I think that James asked for the floor long ago. Thank you very much. I was inspired by you long ago. I'm re-inspired tonight. I wanted to ask, though, one could argue that there's a third big plan on the table along with a Paris Agreement and the SDGs, which is called the Belt and Road Initiative and it's from China. I don't think you've mentioned China this evening. That map potentially massive programme may have more money in it than the other two put together. It's increasingly being sort of blended with another Chinese notion of eco-civilisation. Do you think there's any chance that it could be the biggest force for sustainable development? Let's take that one and the last one to close here. The young ladies. Here in the second row. Last question. Thank you. Thank you, Dr Brandon. You spoke about hope and you spoke about their needing to be, as needing to give hope to people. And as a communicator, that's one of the things that motivates me to do my job, to try to tell the kinds of narratives that will inspire hope and sustainable development. And I'm wondering after all these years doing what you're doing, what are the sources of hope for you in sustainable development? Thank you. I'm starting answering your question now because it is also related to the question about social democracy. Because in all these years, when I have been there pushing, fighting, advocating, analysing and working with others, I was always hopeful that it would be possible for the documents that we worked on in the UN family and in agreements of the kind that came from Cairo, from all the other I mentioned, that some of the basic principles of the rights of women, the right to health, the right to education and to overcome inequality or to fight for equality. This would be possible to get through there, the right to family planning, for instance. Many of these things took a long time, but gradually it did happen. And the final part of this was when people who had been protesting, deleting, putting in brackets, anything that said we are for equality, that was the final stretch. In the sustainable development goals, process and debate. It took a long time before a number of countries gave up the fight against equality. But they did in the end, because before that they used fairness, many other words, were kind of becoming acceptable, but to say that we are for equality. That was really far in here, we are hard. But when that happened, it really gave me hope. Because that means that so many have understood that the big differences and the complete unacceptability of the great difference between people. This is not acceptable. And so in the end they didn't dare anymore to fight against equality. This is my greatest hope in the whole sustainable development goals debate. Because whether you look at this or that area of the total, it is all, I mean, if you understand the necessity of equality and the sentence I took last year from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then you realize that we have come a good way ahead. So I have hope. Now was there one more question? China. You know, I have been observing over the years, China. I was in China first time, 1987. No, no, even before. I was there 78 already. That's a long time ago. I have seen China evolving. I have met many Chinese leaders over the years. And I have been impressed in the last, you know, Copenhagen was terrible. The Chinese leader didn't enter the room at all. He sent a junior representative from the foreign ministry to sit with the presidents and prime ministers of the world. And he was absolutely impossible. But in the end, after Obama pushed open his door, he agreed that we could have a common goal of no more than two degrees Celsius by 2050 and saved the Copenhagen conference. Now, they had already started to understand before 2009 that these issues are very serious. And they have started working hard on them. And of course, since 2009 and onward, China is changing. And the leadership of China understands this. So it is really something again that gives me hope. So that's a nice final statement, isn't it? Andy will close and I don't want to compete with Norway. But I want to say only one thing there because I think that is very important what you said about fighting cynicism and mobilizing people to understand that they have a voice, they have power and the power of voting. So let me just say that my country went through elections very recently and the youth was mobilized because one of the candidates said that he wants to take Costa Rica out of the Human Rights Commission, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, my country that has been known to fight for human rights. And young people mobilized to make that not happen, not happen. They really understood that the vote was the power to really change things. And you cannot imagine how that reserve of democracy from the young people was important to do this. And part was because they know change is possible. Change is possible. So to fight cynicism and to show that change is possible is so important. So my government, the government of my country today have 57% women in government, 46% women in parliament and a 38 years old president. So talking about change, that is change. So your turn. Your turn. Many thanks to all of you for your part in an incredibly rich discussion. It's been great to have you here. We'll be moving for the reception I think in the Maxwell Room afterwards. But before we do, I just want to say three special thank yous. The first one is to our communications team at IID. I won't mention everyone by name because they all mucked in. But they did a fantastic job. And the second thank you is to Rebecca Greenspan for her inimitable and fantastic moderation. I gave you very good. And finally of course one more round of applause. It was an incredibly rich and inspirational speech and discussion. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was fantastic.