#RDD2020 - Pour avancer sur l'Agenda 2030

[Music] [Applause] [Music] bonjour bon jeff can you hear me i hear you very well thank you well what what a day to host you today as we mark the fifth anniversary of the sdgs it's it's an honor to to be with you i know you've been very very busy with the un general assembly and and let me introduce you to our public which is increasingly numerous you you're a professor at the columbia university in which any french student dreams to go and you also the chair or i should say the president of the un sdsn which is the united nations sustainable development network solutions which has a a very beautiful name in french we love acronyms and it keeps ending with solutions which is two very good reasons to love it but there is more behind that because you've been the inceptor the very the very architect of the sdgs if i may and to mark this fifth anniversary i'd like to to start the journey where you started it years ago i guess it was in 2012 right that's correct yeah could you tell us please a bit more about how the very idea of this global global holistic framework for the sustainable development started how you were in touch with the entire leadership of the world to to to to to design this uh framework well there are many strands that have come together to produce these sustainable development goals they really start back in 1948 with the universal declaration of human rights which is a foundational document for modern times saying that every person on the planet has the right to a decent life and i think we're still trying to implement that universal declaration that is right by by the 1970s it became clear that an issue that we didn't know about in 1948 was very much on the agenda and that was the environmental crisis resulting from our economic success as the world economy expanded the pressures of the economy on the environment expanded and we tried for 40 years from 1972 in stockholm 1992 at the rio earth summit and then 20 years after that in 2012 to come up with a framework in which we could honor human rights economic rights and environmental sustainability and in that context the government of colombia made a proposal in 2012 that just as we had millennium development goals right we should have sustainable development goals and to put it in a nutshell for three years governments negotiated what those goals should be five years ago they adopted the agenda 2030 with 17 sustainable development goals they also adopted a few weeks after that the paris climate agreement that is right and that is our governing framework right now we're trying to implement the sustainable development goals and the paris climate agreement and we were having big problems of insufficient cooperation insufficient financing lack of adequate plans general disorganization and then along came cobit 19. absolutely which made the crisis all the worse we will go through all those aspects but two years ago we we met at the paris peace forum and we celebrated we marked at the very at that very time the 20th anniversary of this universal declaration for human rights and i feel like we are now again at the time of anniversary where history has not been sufficient to get us straight to the point straight to action how do you look at what the goalkeepers have published recently in saying that we are 20 years back in time uh if we look at the 2030 agenda meaning we have been losing time and kavin 19 crisis has made us uh get even more bucky seven percent of the global population has fallen in poverty because of the crisis which makes the the goals even even way uh way behind behind us how do you look at that figures first uh there is no way for us to achieve anything in the world that we want with this pandemic continuing to rage we need to get the pandemic under control in order to achieve any of our goals even to maintain social stability right and political coherence so far our governments are failing to do that this is very alarming second obviously we're in a deep economic and humanitarian crisis that we were not in a year ago mass unemployment increasing hunger increasing economic distress huge differential impacts where some parts of society especially those of us who live online and do our work online are able to continue our work and our incomes and our jobs whereas those who depend on the physical economy uh for their direct livelihood are suffering much more and so we have a big inequality that has widened because of this crisis so i would say everything is rather dramatic right now i would add in the fact a basic political fact that the united states under donald trump has had the worst governance that we have had in our modern history i'd like to question you about that very question that very aspect last year you were speaking about inequality in fronting the covet 19 crisis last year when the g7 met uh it it was all about facing inequality and this year the g7 has not even met they did not even convene because uh the g7 was chaired by donald trump he's not at all assuming any endorsing any global leadership he is keeping focused on his re-election and that makes it very difficult for the entire world to deal with this crisis for many reasons we would talk about that but specifically you are a citizens from a citizen from the us and you spoke on how divisive this crisis was and how dangerous this impact on social cohesion was to achieve the 2030 agenda could you let us know from a citizen to a citizen how it works in the us what do you hope for the us and what we can hope from the us as global citizens well the us is the paradox of a very rich country but a very unequal country and a very poorly governed country right now also a country in very deep division it's not unique in this way because we see social divisions in france we see social divisions uh throughout the world but the united states is from the point of view of the high-income countries exceptionally unequal and uh politically quite divided uh and one of the symptoms as well as causes of that is donald trump himself he is in my opinion a mentally unstable individual who is incapable of honest governance and therefore very dangerous in my opinion to american well-being and to the world's ability to solve problems the united states has had more than 200 000 deaths from coped and i attribute a great deal of that to the incapacity of trump's leadership that remarkable lack of leadership of the of the us president is obviously having a tremendous impact on the global stage we are speaking in the very moment at the un general assembly where you uh take part every year and the first there are two first consequences i'd like to hear about from you the first is how china has reacted to this entire crisis five years ago before we adapted the paris climate agreement china and the us had a bilateral deal to raise their ambitions to confront the the the climate crisis it is now push back and they will achieve the the new uh the carbon neutrality only in 2016 how has it affected the the leadership of china uh that that donald trump has played that role and how more generally it has affected uh the the un system the multilateral system you're part of well the geopolitics of the uh world right now is in flux because the post-world war ii era was based on u.s predominance economically technologically and diplomatically and for at least some decades the united states played the role of a leader certainly during the cold war and while there were always tensions within the democracies these were by and large managed sometimes more tense sometimes less tense i would say now the situation is in great flux because china has become a major actor in the world by some measures rivaling the united states in overall economic size though not in economic output per person but in aggregate economic output and many things are happening because of the rise of china but one is a u.s reaction that makes the claim that china's rise in importance is a threat to the world and is based on uh unfair practices i think that these claims are grossly exaggerated uh in my opinion china is basically catching up uh from having been for many historical reasons far behind europe and the united states in technology and in economic productivity and it's merely catching up because it is a capability on that country catching up means that china's become very powerful but the united states in the nationalist wing of our politics the right wing does not accept china's rise this is giving cause for growing tension that i attribute mainly to the united states not to china so different people have their view about the u.s china skirmish but my interpretation is that it's caused mainly by the united states not by china it is very sensitive of you to take that responsibility and and to affirm that on the global stage but let's let's deep dive on chinese aspects uh we've we've been hoping very much from china since uh the the millennium goals which were the the precedent framework prior to the sdgs were achieved mainly because of the chinese growth and and today uh what what makes it difficult to get uh and to get the the sdgs done is the fact that the economic growth that china has led was not as inclusive as we could expect uh was not as carbon neutral as we could expect and has contributed a great deal to the climate crisis on top of that uh we all know that chinese policy uh towards its territory is very very authoritarian we've seen and witnessed the uighur genocide we've seen the policy against hong kong we've seen a longer year ago the taibat policy of cha of picking and we know that they play also role in dealing uh aggressively with taiwan uh in in the sdg framework there is always the balance between uh sustainable development from an economic social environmental point of view and justice peace freedom equality can we trust the chinese as a strong sdg ally well i think that there are a couple of things to say first starting uh 40 years ago when china's rapid economic development took place under deng xiaoping china was extremely poor extremely rural as of 2020 the poverty has basically been ended the extreme poverty that is so china went from more than 50 extreme poverty to zero china developed a high quality education system it expanded health care coverage it built infrastructure all of this is a great achievement of the chinese people and a very successful economic policy at the same time however this was industrialization based on fossil fuels and it was a highly polluting policy china became the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide emissions and of greenhouse gas emissions more generally it has led to massive air pollution in china massive ocean pollution massive water pollution so china not only pays a heavy price of its own pollution but imposes pollution on the rest of the world in 2015 the chinese leadership said that it was time for a decisive change of direction and that was what enabled the uh paris climate agreement to be so successful diplomatically china and the united states walked through the door together and said together we will now decarbonize the energy system since that time the united states pulled out of the paris climate agreement under trump and trump has tried to maximize fossil fuel production by the contrary president xi at the general assembly last week set a goal of decarbonizing china by the year 2060 this was a breakthrough in policy it was a success of europe because europe had been pushing china to make such a commitment indeed precisely that one uh and i believe that it's a very important commitment albeit one that should be even faster because all of our countries should decarbonize by 2050 not by 2060. nonetheless we have a big advance for china that's right now when it comes to the politics china's argument is uh twofold one that the territorial integrity of china is paramount and that the rules of the un charter are non-interference in internal affairs my own view is that if we want a peaceful cooperative world we should cooperate and in a environment of high trust we can also talk about internal issues in each other's countries but in an environment of very low trust that kind of approach is in bad faith so when the united states only points its finger at china you don't do this or you don't do that this is not conducive to any kind of problem solving uh it is uh only part of a kind of cold war if we want to have not only peaceful relations but realization of the universal declaration of human rights it should be on the basis of the un charter and on the basis of trust among the major powers again i don't think the united states is in any position to point fingers because it is unilaterally imposing sanctions it is unilaterally withdrawing from un uh treaties and protocols it is unilaterally attacking the international system it is unilaterally imposing sanctions and limits on china explicitly calling china an enemy this is unwise for us because it is very likely that that will explode likely to produce a serious adverse reaction to the detriment of the entire world that is interesting that we explore here the very complexity of the sdgs which is the nexus they form and i i i feel i i feel awkward in hearing you not because you're not clear or not because you're not sincere or authentic i'm just like i'm just puzzled by the fact that we as european if i hear to you i feel like we would uh have to renounce or to to to to drop the idea of protecting uighurs in the western part of china who are suffering a genocide because we want the chinese uh bald policies on climate is that is that the way you present it or is it only the fact that uh trump is pointing his fingers that makes a difference well i think that europe needs its own policy uh vis-a-vis china not a u.s policy europe has to say that nato is not an expeditionary force against china as u.s policymakers have said europe has to say that the g7 is not an instrument for surrounding china or containing china europe has to say that it is not part of the uh attempt to cut off china's economic development that the u.s is clearly undertaking right now so europe needs its own foreign policy not a u.s policy i'm afraid that at least under trump the idea of u.s policy is u.s dominance and that is not in europe's interest and it is not something that europe should have as its centerpiece of policy my own view is that europe and china and also the u.s ought to have the mature serious deep and highly institutionalized relationships amongst one another and i like the fact that there is a european union china diplomacy and just in that context i'm coming to it issues like the uyghurs or issues like other concerns of human rights should be addressed in a serious way not by tweets not by unilateral attacks but by bilateral discussions that's very right context i see nothing wrong with discussing those issues absolutely we we've been out now from the under assembly it's it's over and we've seen that ping pong uh play between china and the us exactly in the terms you've you've explained the next step to to to make more diplomacy around the sdgs and achieve that the 2030 agenda is precisely um the g20 summit that takes place uh very soon under the chair of the kingdom of saudi arabia and i'd like to ask you uh whether you see here something an opportunity outside to to to to enter that level of diplomacy because the g20 have um a very has very little reacted to the g20 to the kovit-19 crisis the g20 only organized or mostly organized a debt relief of the least developed countries at the international stage as as the president of the unsdsn which is in contact with so many academics around the world and mostly in g20 countries what what would be the advice you'd make to g20 leaders if they were inviting you at that table to precisely accelerate the transition towards the 2030 agenda if we had a rational global process which we don't have but if we did yeah we would take seriously the goals that we have saved if we would analyze the steps that are needed to achieve those goals and the problem right now is that we do not take the goals clearly seriously and then ask about implementation i put a very large responsibility of that on the united states because this is uh almost a contrary to our current populism in the u.s trump is not accountable to the international goals trump never says words sustainable development goals trump has uh abandoned the paris climate agreement and my view well of course much depends on what happens in uh november in our politics if uh vice president biden is elected america will be back as a cooperative force in the world and then the possibility of uh global cooperation around these issues is very important if trump is re-elected i regard the united states under trump as a threat to the world peace and a threat to sustainable development and then i would hope that the other 19 countries of the g20 would understand that clearly they don't like to talk in these terms i'm an academic so i speak i think pretty uh clearly uh i hope but policymakers don't like to speak badly of trump because uh they don't find it in their country's interest to attack the united states but the fact of the matter is trump is a threat to the world because the unilateralism of the united states is not only morally obnoxious it is politically dangerous and so in this sense we have to be clear about realities that we face right now and uh i don't think saudi arabia will be all that clear with trump there because the u.s is the security umbrella for saudi arabia so everybody has reasons for lack of clarity but this means lack of progress towards our objectives and and prof uh prof sucks there is one leader uh at the g20 table which is uh very committed to the sdgs uh spain which is not a member of the g20 itself is a permanent invitee to the g20 and and the prime minister of spain has longly appointed a vice prime minister for the sdg implementation so maybe if you were at the g20 table you would have an ally there saying humbly to the rest of leaders look we can strive we can drive a country and steer government with the sdgs is that something you would recommend to to joe biden if you if you were elected in the next month well let me say that what europe has done with the european green deal and the recovery fund is a role model for other parts of the world this is very important for europeans to understand that what the european commission has done and what the european council has done is truly outstanding because the european green deal is not merely rhetoric it is a elaborated framework for achieving both the sdgs and the paris climate agreement it's rational it's bureaucratic in the vaberian sense meaning that it organizes public administration processes to pursue social objectives it is a role model if biden is elected i believe the united states will have something of that sort introduced in 2021 i think europe should understand and take pride in the fact that china's announcement last week that president xi made about decarbonizing by 2060 is a european achievement because europe set a standard of clarity of how to set the national agenda china agreed with that and that is an important step forward that's why i believe that mature detailed institutionalized relations between the eu and china between the eu and the african union between the eu and asean and so forth can be a significant breakthrough everything is hard with the united states being in opposition to such programmatic activities but if president if vice president biden becomes president then we will have the opportunity for the u.s and europe to have a shared framework going forward and and jeff you you've spoken about the eu in a very positive narrative language you've you've been you've said we have played a role model to the world and we've embedded china in the transition which is uh it sounds music to my ears is there something you also appear yourself as the sdg conceptor i'd say as a role model as a citizen to us those who encounter here during this hong kong development how could what advice would you would you say to us as an individual to to our lives uh to to get uh to be part of that transition and to to bring our own efforts as individuals to the sdg implementation well thanks uh for the the excellent question uh and i'm gonna have to step off here as you know uh so i'll close uh also with these remarks uh the sustainable development goals and the paris climate agreement are global unanimous agreements of governments in 2015. that's very remarkable one country since then the united states has broken this consensus but all the rest of the world remains aligned in this consensus the reason we have this consensus is that these are urgent challenges what we know from careful analysis is that these challenges can be met successfully this is the most important point which is that we have the technological means the organizational means and the financial means to stop human-induced climate change to stop the pandemic of covet 19 to assure that every child has access to education and to achieve the other sustainable development goals our barrier therefore is not at the technological or economic or financial barrier the barriers are more of a philosophical sort uh ethical barriers uh understanding each other better methods of cooperation at a global scale that doesn't make them small challenges but it does make them challenges that can be successfully achieved i think that all of our institutions should be organized to achieve the goals that we've set because they are very important for human well-being and so each of us individually should be asking the question what's missing what can i do how can i contribute to the success of the european green deal how can i help politically to keep my city or my country aligned with the sustainable development agenda this to my mind is our individual responsibility and we at universities have a particular role to play because universities are filled with young people they're filled with knowledge they're filled with the long-term vision and i believe that they are based on a conception of the common good so i view universities as having a distinctive role to play thank you professor for reminding us that the baseline the very spirit of the sdgs is leave no one behind and what you just said is is not only leave no one behind in implementing uh the sdgs but also in acting and putting them in place and getting things done we all have a a part to play in that problem and a solution to bringing i'd like to thank you very much for spending with us this masterclass from from new york uh and and from your busy schedule and i would like to just highlight the fact that the organization you've created the unsdsn is developing globally and many many academic institutions have joined the network to bring in energy solutions ideas and the the uh business school we are co-organizing the uh the the conference today catch business school is one of the most involved business good in france within the unscsm so i like to specifically highlight their commitment and their their their involvement in the solutions you've developed thank you prof be in touch keep it up and and you have so many funny things to achieve in the next months to make sure that we keep having hope from from the us and when we meet next year we will be on the right track again thank you thomas goodbye continue to develop energy geopolitics is [Music] foreign

Channel: Institut Open Diplomacy

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Length: 34min 28sec (2068 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 28 2020