United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
Preparatory Committee
2nd Intersessional Meeting
15 December 2011
BRAZIL
Statement by Ambassador André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, Director,
Department for Environment and Special Themes, Ministry of External Relations
Mr. Chairman,
I will answer the questions that were asked to the delegations. First, I would like to
recall that Brazil associates itself with the statement made by Argentina on behalf of
the G-77 and China.
Regarding question 1, Brazil wants the full consideration of the concept of sustainable
development in decision-making by economic, social and environment actors with a
view to creating greater synergy, coordination and integration among the three pillars
of sustainable development and overcoming the continued prevalence of sectorspecific
visions. On the other side, we would like to see the Sustainable
Developoment Goals that will determine the areas where national and international
cooperation efforts need to be concentrated with a view to fostering sustainable
development and taking equity among nations into due consideration.
In this sense, Brazil believes that the three essential dimensions of the conference -
first, the intergov process, second, the civ soc, and third, the business community). In
that context, the Brazilian government will organize four days of dialog on
sustainable development concentrating on the following 8 themes:
- Poverty eradication, food and nutritional security;
- Energy;
- Water;
- Oceans;
- Sustainable cities;
- Economics of sustainable development (including sustainable patterns of production
and consumption);
- Innovation for sustainable development;
- Decent work and migration.
On question 2, we have to help decision-makers and civil society to understand the
nexus between the issues, how to integrate these issues and how they are
interconnected. We have to be able to make sure that there is a clear view of
sustainable development inside our countries, at local, regional and national levels, so
that we can fight for it in the multilateral agenda.
Regarding question 3, I have no doubt that the answer is the permanent incorporation
of poverty eradication as an essential element for achieving sustaianble development.
Answering question 4, we would like to make available an Outlook that would
promote integrated analyses of the already vast store of sector knowledge, such as
energy, finance, population, environment, agriculture, and others. Thereby we would
improve the interpretation of links among the different sectors and make coherent
action feasible in the economic, social and environmental areas, helping the SDGs to
be more effective and better acompolished.
On question 5, we want green economy to be an inclusive green economy. We want
the economic community to accept and adopt sustainable development as a paradigm
and to promote sustainable patterns of production and consumption.
I will not address question 6 due to lack of time.
In answer to question 7, we want an effective - not a symbolic - strenghtening of
UNEP and the UNDP as something absolutely critical. We would also like to see a
governance structure that ensures that the concept of sustainable development is given
due consieration as a paradigm by all the UN specialized agencies and organization as
well as the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the International
Monetary Fund.
Thank you.
