UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION. Address by Mr Federico Mayor

Transcription

1 DG/96/24 Original: English UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION Address by Mr Federico Mayor Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the Opening Ceremony of the World Solar Summit Harare (Zimbabwe), 16 September 1996

2 Mr President, Your Excellencies, Heads of State and Government, Honourable Vice-Presidents of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Distinguished Members of the World Solar Commission, Mr Representative of the Secretary-General, Mr Secretary-General of the Organization for African Unity, Mr Director-General of the World Health Organization, Mr Commissioner of the European Union, Ministers, Excellencies, Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to begin - in the only way possible - by expressing my deep appreciation to the President of Zimbabwe, Chairman of the Summit, for the commitment and dedication with which he has guided the World Solar Summit Process towards this successful culmination. In the name of all present, I ask H.E. President Robert Mugabe to accept our thanks for his invaluable contribution to the solar energy cause. I would also ask him to convey to his collaborators and to all the people of Zimbabwe our gratitude for the generous way in which they have welcomed us to their wonderful country for this important event. I hope that Zimbabwe will continue to play a leading role in this field. UNESCO greatly appreciates the support given by the United Nations, its programmes and agencies, by the European Commission, which has been a full partner in this initiative, and by all the other organizations, public and private, that are providing the Solar Summit Process with their assistance and experience. I offer my sincere thanks to all the Heads of State and Prime Ministers who have agreed to be members of the World Solar Commission - to those present and those who have sent personal messages through their distinguished representatives. UNESCO greatly appreciates the support H.E. Yasser Arafat has provided and is providing to the World Solar Summit Process and expresses its satisfaction at his presence here in Harare, despite the heavy responsibilities he has at this moment. To H.E. Sardar Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari, President of Pakistan; H.E. Fredrick Chiluba, President of Zambia; H.E. Joachim Chissano, President of Mozambique; H.E. General Ibrahim Mainassara Bare, President of Niger; H.E. The Right Honorable Sir Kamisese Mara, President of Fiji; H.E. Benjamin William Mkapa, President of Tanzania; H.E. Antonio Mascarenhas Monteiro, President of Cape Verde, H.E. Sir Ketumile Masire, President of Botswana; H.E. Dr Sam Nujoma, President of Namibia; to the Prime Ministers and Ministers who honour us with their presence; to the Vice-

3 2 Presidents of the Republic of Zimbabwe, as well as to all the other participants, we likewise express our warm gratitude. Their presence encourages us to pursue together this worldwide initiative that finds in the African continent - whose potential is so often underestimated - the ideal location for the establishment, development and consolidation of a world solar programme. I commend Africa for being in the forefront of this significant venture. It is a great honour and pleasure for me to address you today at the opening of this Summit, which is the outcome of three years preparation and consultation. Your presence here is the expression of a shared concern with the equitable provision of environmentally friendly forms of energy, an affirmation of the significant role that solar and other types of renewable energy can and should play - in conjunction with other forms of energy - in the provision of energy services worldwide and in the sustainable use of environmental resources for the well-being of humanity. As we prepare to enter the third millennium, it is estimated that 2.4 billion people have no regular access to electricity. The lack of a reliable means of heating and lighting the homes, clinics and schools of some 40% of the world s population - living mainly in rural or remote areas of the developing world - acts as a significant brake on the development process. In such areas, people - more often than not women and children - are obliged to make long journeys to find drinking water and fuelwood. Renewable energy electrification would help meet the basic needs of isolated populations in terms of heat, light, the pumping and purification of freshwater, educational opportunities, basic communications, medical care, incomegenerating rural activities and improved agricultural methods and techniques - in short, all those facilities we think of as necessary for a healthy, developing community. The leaders of the world's nations, meeting at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, recognized the risk of rapid climate change caused by emission gases - some of them with clear greenhouse impact - and prepared a Convention designed to stabilize the earth's climate. The Conference laid stress on the development of environmentally sound energy systems, particularly new and renewable sources of energy, to the benefit of industrialized and

4 3 developing countries alike. Industrialized countries can indeed profit from the incorporation of renewable energies into their national energy programmes. For example, Denmark today produces 3.5% of its electricity from wind, at a cost that is competitive with traditional fossil fuels. It is my conviction that the World Solar Summit and the ten-year programme of action that this meeting will set in train are positive and practical steps towards providing energy supplies and a healthier and cleaner environment for ourselves, our children and our children's children. The Declaration and the projects already prepared, revised and preselected constitute - I would like to emphasize - a new modality, a new approach that I sincerely hope will constitute a scientifically rigorous response to the urgent and extensive needs of very diverse countries. It should enable these countries, with their varying requirements and situations, to implement the projects rapidly with the assistance of financing sources and in accordance with their own objectives and means. Traditional modalities are time-consuming and usually do not attract much support or achieve good results because of the tardiness with which political will is translated into project implementation. The widespread use of renewable energy sources as part of a global energy system requires increased knowledge of the various technologies and their adaptation to different contexts and fields of application, and the importance of further research, education and training of engineers and technicians cannot be over-emphasized. The availability of unrestricted information and its communication to decision-makers and the public at large will serve to influence public opinion and the all-important energy consumption patterns of the population. Public awareness and participation are the keys to success, as in so many other fields. I am pleased to observe that education, training and public understanding in the field of renewable energy were identified as a strategic priority during the various regional consultations carried out as part of the World Solar Summit Process. Only if we are able to enhance the quality of life in rural areas will our target of reaching the unreached, including the excluded, be achieved; only then will population growth rates and the consequent emigration flows decrease. The three main - interdependent - dimensions of this initiative are therefore

5 4 social, educational and environmental. The media have a major role to play in spreading awareness of these dimensions. Yesterday, when I visited the Media Centre during the Press reception, I was reassured in this respect when I saw a panel reading Solar energy for sustainable development, culture, peace and environment, which to me is a perfect synthesis of the objectives of this Summit. Mr President, Your Excellencies, The World Solar Summit Process was founded upon a commitment to the idea that renewable energies represent a means of providing substantially improved living conditions for a large section of humankind, together with a less endangered environment. Its pursuit over these last three years has been marked by constant support and co-operation from governments, institutions and non-governmental organizations alike. The presence here at the Summit of Heads of State and so many highranking representatives of national governments is an encouraging testimony to their support for this programme. I said earlier that the Summit represented the culmination of the Summit Process. It is also very much a beginning - the start of a ten-year plan of almost unprecedented international and national action and co-operation. The World Solar Programme , which the Summit is to officially launch this week, is a major international initiative with which UNESCO is pleased to be associated. It will initially embrace some 300 renewable energy projects for execution throughout the world, and will require the commitment of national authorities, the relevant organizations of the United Nations system, multilateral and regional development banks, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, academic and research institutions, and the private sector - many of these actors being represented here today. The programme cannot be completed without your full support and patronage. Solar energy is today, Ladies and Gentlemen, no longer the distant dream of the energy planner. I call upon you all to lend your sustained help and invaluable guidance to this endeavour, which could help to start a new era in the use of solar energy for sustainable development and the betterment of humankind.

6 5 Mr Chairman, Let us recall the words of that great Indian sage and politician, Mahatma Gandhi, who said: "The more experience I gather, the more I realize that Man himself is the cause of his happiness as well as his misery." I am confident that this Summit will mark an important step in the development and dissemination of the knowledge and means required for a globally sustainable energy system in the century to come. Such a system is an important facet of the changes we must make, with courage, resolve and scientific rigour, in order to reduce present asymmetries in the sharing of resources of all kind - asymmetries that are inadmissible from the moral point of view, that generate frustration and violence, and that threaten world peace and security at the dawn of a new millennium. We know now that integration - at the sub-regional or regional levels - will never happen if it is only based on economic interest. It is clear that money divides if it is the only ingredient of alliances. Integration is achieved with common values, with the democratic ideals of justice, freedom, equality and solidarity enshrined in UNESCO s Constitution. There can be no sustainable peace without development; no sustainable development without a social context governed by democratic principles; no sustainable development without a human face. And we have too often forgotten the human face. The human species is the first one that must be protected. We have forgotten that science and technology are there to mitigate human suffering. The results are before us: a system based on equality collapsed in 1989 because it had forgotten freedom. A system based on freedom can also fall if it forgets equality. And neither system takes into account fraternity. We must tirelessly build peace in the mind of men. We must build peace and strengthen brotherhood every day through our attitudes and our behaviour. Our everyday conduct is the supreme expression of our beliefs, traditions, aspirations, thoughts, reflections, inventions - the supreme expression, in short, of our culture. Let us create a culture of peace. Let us abandon forever the culture of war and permanently build peace and justice in the exercise of our responsibilities. And what are our responsibilities, what is our field of competence, if we really want to make the indispensable and urgent transformations that human dignity demands? Our responsibilities, our field of competence, are nothing more or less than what is prescribed by our conscience.