Back to the future: A sustainability plan for our kids

On the 50th Anniversary of the Stock­holm Earth Sum­mit, and the 30th Anniversary of the Rio Earth Sum­mit — both of which were led by my friend Maurice Strong, the inspir­a­tion for SUN^x Malta (Strong Uni­ver­sal Net­work) — I gave a key­note at a Stock­holm event reflect­ing on the dom­in­ant role Maurice played in cre­at­ing today’s United Nations-led cli­mate and envir­on­ment agenda. It is a pos­it­ive (but alarmed) mes­sage that our only hope is in our kids.

I’m delighted to give this key­note, vir­tu­ally, in Stock­holm dur­ing the com­mem­or­a­tion of the 1st Earth Sum­mit 50 years ago. I thank iGEM and CBCGDF for the honour.

You may won­der why a man who has spent a life­time in Trav­el­ism (travel & tour­ism) and not in your bio-engin­eer­ing world is giv­ing this address. 

It’s per­haps because we are all part of the Trav­el­ism eco­sys­tem — either as vis­it­ors or vis­ited. And SUN^x Malta, where I am Pres­id­ent, is a glob­al centre for Cli­mate Friendly Travel — sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goal (SDG) and Par­is 1.5‑linked.

But most import­antly it’s because SUN^x — the Strong Uni­ver­sal Net­work — is a leg­acy to Maurice Strong my friend and ment­or, who was the archi­tect of the UN-led sys­tem driv­ing today’s exist­en­tial green and clean transformation.

It’s some­times good to go back into the les­sons of his­tory to shape a bet­ter path for­ward, hence my sub­ject today: Back to the Future: a Sus­tain­ab­il­ity Plan for our Kids.

A future that above all must beat the exist­en­tial cli­mate crisis that UN Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al Guterres has called a Code Red for Humanity. 

(My single slide’s bright red back­ground is to remind us of this harsh reality.)

And to real­ise that future by build­ing power­ful resi­li­ence and decar­bon­isa­tion struc­tures on the firm found­a­tions that vis­ion­ar­ies put in place half a cen­tury ago.

The late Maurice Strong was such a visionary. 

Des­pite not fin­ish­ing high school in his nat­ive Canada, Maurice earned some 60 hon­or­ary degrees from around the world before his death a few days before the 2015 Par­is Cli­mate COP, which star­ted with a eulogy to him.

Maurice Strong was:

• Sev­en times Under Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al of the UN.
• Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al of Stock­holm 1972 the first Earth Sum­mit that launched the glob­al green movement.
• Found­ing Exec­ut­ive Dir­ect­or of the United Nations Envir­on­ment Pro­gramme (UNEP) and lead­er of the UN Envir­on­ment Sys­tem dur­ing its form­at­ive years of the 1970s.
• Mem­ber of the Club of Rome that defined Plan­et­ary Boundaries. 
• On the Found­ing Board of the World Eco­nom­ic For­um that brought busi­ness to the envir­on­ment table. 
• On the Brundtland Com­mis­sion that defined sus­tain­able devel­op­ment as leav­ing the world a bet­ter place for our Kids. 
• Advisor to the World Bank Pres­id­ent, link­ing glob­al fin­ance and envir­on­ment programs.
• Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al of the land­mark 2^nd Rio Earth Sum­mit in 1992 with its vis­ion­ary Agenda 21 codi­fy­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment; spawn­ing con­ven­tions on cli­mate, deser­ti­fic­a­tion, biod­iversity, and forest man­age­ment; and empower­ing the United Nations Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UNFCCC) and Inter­gov­ern­ment­al Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC).
• Design­er of the Earth Charter — with former USSR Pres­id­ent Mikhael Gorbachev — which intro­duced in the Hag­ue in 2000 a far-sighted com­pact between people and plan­et that picked up where Rio stopped.

These are the firm found­a­tions that today sup­port the SDGs, Par­is 1.5, and the 2030/2050 Agenda. 

Former UN Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al Ban Ki-Moon called it “the Future We Want”. 

Pess­im­ists look­ing back will tell you that it’s already too late for that future; that we should have acted years ago; and, at the cur­rent fossil fuel burn rate, we will hit closer to 3 degrees by the turn of the cen­tury, mak­ing for a dead plan­et for human­ity and the spe­cies we are mur­der­ing with our cur­rent life­style. 

But we must not be pessimists. 

Also see “Hello 2022: Hello Code Red, Cli­mate Friendly Travel” &
“SUNx’ 7‑point cli­mate action plan more ambi­tious than Glasgow”

While the code red clock is tick­ing relent­lessly, we do still have time. 

That is my mes­sage to you today

We still have time.

And we have path­ways to a bet­ter future. They can be found not just by look­ing back, but in look­ing for­ward and listen­ing to our kids. 

• It is our kids who have green, nature-based think­ing in their DNA. 
• It is our kids who live and breathe new tech­no­logy, innov­a­tion, and entrepreneurship.
• It is our kids who have deep pas­sion in their hearts for a clean­er, green­er future.
• It is our kids who have an inher­ent sense of decency unpol­luted by cyn­icism, greed, inequity, and the beg­gar-my-neigh­bour polit­ics of our world.
• It is our kids who are lead­ing the glob­al calls for more action now so that we can real­ist­ic­ally plan for a secure future. 
• It is our kids who will be tomorrow’s lead­ers and will have to pick up our mess.
• It is our kids who carry the (Maurice) ‘Strong Vis­ion’ first launched in Stock­holm half a cen­tury ago to leave the world a bet­ter place.
• It is our kids who love to see the world and who there­fore demand Cli­mate Friendly Travel — Par­is 1.5 and SDG-linked. 

We are train­ing them in our Gradu­ate Dip­loma with ITS Malta to be Strong Cli­mate Cham­pi­ons to lead Cli­mate Friendly Travel com­munity trans­form­a­tion around the world.

And we are hir­ing them as interns in our SUN^x Malta CFT Registry to help turn declar­a­tions into actions that truly bend emis­sion trends.

We must listen. And we must act now. 

As the amaz­ing Greta Thun­berg would say, “no more blah, blah, blah”. 

Thank you and Happy World Envir­on­ment Day.

About SUN^x Malta — Strong Universal Network

SUN^x Malta is a leg­acy for the late Maurice Strong, fath­er of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Its goal is to advance Cli­mate Friendly Travel (CFT) ~ low car­bon : SDG linked : Par­is 1.5.

SUN^x has a core part­ner­ship with Malta’s Min­istry of Tour­ism & Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion and Malta Tour­ism Author­ity to advance CFT, to cre­ate a UNFC­CC-linked CFT Registry and to pro­mote CFT Edu­ca­tion. It plans to put in place 100,000 Strong Cli­mate Cham­pi­ons by 2030 across all UN States.

About the author

SUN^x Pres­id­ent Geof­frey Lip­man was formerly Assist­ant Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al of the UN World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion (UNWTO), Pres­id­ent of the World Travel & Tour­ism Coun­cil (WTTC), and Exec­ut­ive Dir­ect­or of the Inter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port Author­ity (IATA).