The world should learn the lessons of past health scares if it wants to tackle the complexities of climate change
Business leaders complain that governments are slow to lead, but too often politicians have to take business people by the nose. Consider Sweden, an early leader in environmental policy, and still at the leading edge of change. That's where I met Norway's two-times Prime Minister, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland in June, at the annual Tällberg Forum. It was fascinating to see a political leader who has done so much to shape business thinking engaging a new generation of entrepreneurs.
Trained as a medical doctor, Brundtland became a politician and diplomat. She helped put the concept of sustainable development on the international agenda, notably in 1987 with the launch of the hugely influential report Our Common Future.
The "Brundtland Report" had a profound impact on the 1992 Earth Summit. This, in turn, produced—among other things—the Kyoto Protocol and the Climate Change Convention. The first had a massive impact on a range of industries, whereas the second is still struggling to gain real political and market traction.
When I met Dr Brundtland during a closed session at this year's Tällberg Forum, held in a remote area of Sweden, I thanked her for her inspiration over three decades. As the winner of the 2009 Tällberg Leadership Award for Principled Pragmatism, she gave two speeches during the Forum, one recalling her time as head of the World Health Organization (WHO). She sees the SARS epidemic as a time when the world community came together, after initial hiccups in terms of China's reflexive cover-up, to address a major challenge urgently and effectively.
Climate change is a much greater challenge than SARS ever was, she notes, yet we have woefully failed to mobilise. Today she serves as UN special envoy on climate change, but you can sense her real frustration with the pace of progress. So I imagine she approved of the spur-of-the-moment decision to parachute the huge tent that hosts the Tällberg Forum into Copenhagen in time for December's climate summit, to issue counter-blasts to summit-as-usual posturing and rhetoric. Keep an eye on how many business people show up in the Big Tent.
John Elkington is co-founder of SustainAbility (www.sustainability.com) and Volans (www.volans.com).
Posted 10 July 2009 : Director.co.uk
