Brazil

The General Assembly has been and must continue to be the great forum for general debate concerning humankind’s major problems. I wish to discuss three crucial issues which I believe to be interconnected. Three perils that haunt our planet are the ongoing economic crisis, the lack of stable, democratic world governance and the threat posed by climate change to all of our lives. Exactly one year ago, at the outset of the economic crisis that overtook the world economy, I said from this rostrum that history would never forgive us for the serious blunder of dealing only with the impact of the crisis rather than its causes. More than a crisis of big banks, this is a crisis of big dogmas. An economic, political and social outlook held to be unquestionable has simply fallen apart. A senseless way of thinking and acting which dominated the world for decades has proven itself bankrupt. I refer to the absurd doctrine that markets could regulate themselves with no need for so-called intrusive State intervention. And I refer to the thesis of absolute freedom for financial capital, with no rules or transparency, beyond the control of people and institutions. It was an iniquitous defence of a minimal, crippled, weakened state, unable to promote development or to fight poverty and inequities. It included the demonization of social policies, an obsession with precarious labour relations and an irresponsible commoditization of public services. The real cause of the crises is that most of the sovereignty of peoples and nations and their democratic governments had been confiscated by autonomous networks of wealth and power. I said then that the time had come for political decisions. I said that leaders, rather than arrogant technocrats must take responsibility for bringing worldwide disorder under control. Controlling the crisis and changing the course of the world’s economy could not be left to the usual few. Developed countries and the multilateral agencies that they run had been unable to foresee the approaching catastrophe, much less prevent it. The impact of the crisis spread around the world, striking, above all, countries that for years, and at great sacrifice, had been rebuilding their economies. It is not fair that the price of runaway speculation be paid by those who had nothing to do with it, by workers and by poor or developing countries. Twelve months later, we can see some progress, but many doubts still persist. No one is yet clearly willing to confront serious distortions of the global economy in the multilateral arena. The fact that we avoided a total collapse of the system has apparently given rise to an irresponsible acquiescence in certain sectors. Most of the underlying problems have been ignored. There is enormous resistance to the adoption of effective mechanisms to regulate financial markets. Rich countries are putting off reform at multilateral agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. We simply cannot understand the paralysis of the Doha Round, whose conclusion will, above all, benefit the poorest 7 09-52179 countries of our world. There are also worrisome signs of return to protectionist practices, while little has been done to fight tax havens. Many countries, however, have not sat waiting. Brazil, fortunately one of the last countries to be hit by the crisis, is now one of the first to emerge from it. There is no magic in what we did. We simply kept our financial system from being contaminated by the virus of speculation. We had already cut back our external vulnerability as we turned from debtors into international creditors. Along with other countries, we decided to contribute resources for the IMF to lend money to the poorest countries, free of the unacceptable conditions imposed in the past. Above all, however, both before and after the crisis broke out, we implemented countercyclical policies. We intensified our social programmes, particularly income-transfer programmes. We raised wages above inflation rates. We used fiscal measures to stimulate consumption and keep the economy moving. We have now emerged from our brief recession. Our economy has regained its impetus and shows promise for 2010. Foreign trade is recovering vitality, the labour market is doing amazingly well and macroeconomic equilibrium has been preserved, at no cost to the victories of our people’s movements. What Brazil and other countries have shown is that, at times of crisis, we must still carry out bold social and development programmes. Yet I hold no illusions that we might solve our problems alone, within our own borders. Because the global economy is interdependent, we are all obliged to intervene across national borders and must therefore establish once again the world economic order. At meetings of the Group of 20 and many other meetings I have held with world leaders, I have insisted on the need to irrigate the world economy with a significant volume of credit. I have defended the regulation of financial markets, the widespread adoption of countercyclical policies, the end of protectionism and the fight against tax havens. With the same determination, my country has proposed a true reform of the multilateral financial institutions. Poor and developing countries must increase their share of control in the IMF and the World Bank. Otherwise, there can be no real change, and the peril of new and greater crises will be inevitable. Only more representative and democratic international agencies will be able to deal with complex problems such as reorganizing the international monetary system. Sixty-five years on, the world can no longer be run by the same rules and values that prevailed at the Bretton Woods Conference. Likewise, the United Nations and its Security Council can no longer be run under the same structures imposed after the Second World War. We are in a period of transition in international relations. We are moving towards a multilateral world. However, it is also a multipolar world, based on experiences in regional integration such as South America’s experience in creating the Union of South American Nations. This multipolar world will not conflict with the United Nations. On the contrary, it could be an invigorating factor for the United Nations. It would create the platform for a United Nations with the political and moral authority to solve the conflicts in the Middle East, assuring the coexistence of a Palestinian State with the State of Israel; a United Nations that confronts terrorism without stigmatizing ethnic groups and religions, instead dealing with underlying causes and promoting dialogue among civilizations; a United Nations that can truly help countries such as Haiti that are trying to rebuild their economies and mend their social fabric after achieving political stability; a United Nations committed to the African renaissance that we are now seeing; a United Nations able to implement effective policies that preserve and expand human rights; a United Nations that can make real progress towards disarmament in true balance with non-proliferation; a United Nations that can truly lead in initiatives to protect the planet’s environment; a United Nations that can use its Economic and Social Council to forge decisions on confronting the economic crisis; and a United Nations that is representative enough to address threats to world peace through a reformed Security Council that is renewed and open to new permanent members. We are not wishful thinkers. Yet it takes political will to confront and overcome situations that conspire against peace, development and democracy. Unless political will is present, throwbacks such as the embargo against Cuba will persist. Unless there is political will, we will see more coups such as the one that toppled the constitutional 09-52179 8 President of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya, who has been granted refuge in Brazil’s embassy in Tegucigalpa since Monday. The international community demands that Mr. Zelaya immediately return to the presidency of his country, and it must be alert to ensure the inviolability of Brazil’s diplomatic mission in the capital of Honduras. Finally, unless political will prevails, threats to the world such as climate change will continue to grow. All countries must take action to turn back global warming. We are dismayed by the reluctance of developed countries to shoulder their share of the burden when it comes to fighting climate change. They cannot burden developing and poor countries with tasks that are theirs alone. Brazil is doing its part. We will arrive in Copenhagen with precise alternatives and commitments. We have approved a national climate change plan that includes an 80 per cent cut in deforestation of the Amazon by 2020. We will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 4.8 billion tons — more than the sum total of all the commitments of developed countries. In 2009, we can already boast the lowest deforestation rate in 20 years. Brazil’s energy blend is in one of the cleanest in the world. Forty-five per cent of the energy that my country consumes is renewable. In the rest of the world, only 12 per cent is renewable, while no country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has a rate higher than 5 per cent. Eighty per cent of our electric power also comes from renewable sources. All the gasoline sold for our passenger cars has 25 per cent ethanol blended into it. More than 80 per cent of the cars produced in our country have flexible- fuel engines that enable them to use any blend of gasoline and/or alcohol. Brazil’s ethanol and other biofuels are produced in ever-improving conditions under the ecological zoning plan that we have just sent to our National Congress. We have banned sugar cane plantations and alcohol plants in areas with native vegetation. That decision applies to the entire Amazon region as well as to other major biomes. Sugar cane production covers no more than 2 per cent of our tillable land. Unlike other biofuels, it does not affect food security, much less compromise the environment. Companies, farm workers and the Government have signed an important commitment to ensure decent working conditions on Brazil’s sugar cane plantations. All those concerns are part of the energy policies of a country that is self-sufficient in oil and has just found major reserves that will put us in the forefront of fossil fuel production. Even so, Brazil will not relinquish its environmental agenda and simply turn into an oil giant. We plan to consolidate our role as a world Power in green energy. Meanwhile, developed countries must set emission-reduction goals that go far beyond those tabled to date, which represent a mere fraction of the reductions recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We are also deeply concerned that the funding announced to date for technological innovations needed to protect the environment in developing countries is totally insufficient. The solutions to those and other impasses will arise only if the perils of climate change are confronted with the understanding that we share common but differentiated responsibilities. The issues at the core of our concerns — the financial crisis, new global governance and climate change — have one strong common denominator: the need to build a new international order that is sustainable, multilateral and less asymmetric, free of hegemonies and ruled by democratic institutions. Such a new world is a political and moral imperative. We cannot just shovel away the rubble of failure; we must be midwives to the future. That is the only way to make amends for so much injustice and to prevent new collective tragedies.