E3G

Facing up to Reality: Choices for a Sustainable World

By Tom Burke

The 4th Apeldoorn conference was held in The Hague on 1 and 2 June 2007, focusing on the theme of ‘Facing up to Reality: Choices for a Sustainable World’.

E3G founding director Tom Burke was in attendance to chair the second workshop on the global environment. He also made an opening speech on the nature of the challenge facing Europe.

The full text follows below and is also attached in PDF format for download.

Facing up to Reality: Choices for a Sustainable World

The 4th Apeldoorn Conference, The Hague.
Addressed by Tom Burke CBE, 1st June 2007

Thank you very much for inviting me to speak to you today. It is always a pleasure to be back in the Netherlands. I am also particularly pleased to be speaking to you on such a timely topic. The truth is that we are a long way from facing up to reality and the resources which are most desperately scarce are time and political will. I hope that over the next two days we might be able to explore some ways of making the most of both.

We live in extraordinary times. More people live longer, healthier lives, with more prosperity and greater security than ever before in history. We live in a world beyond our parents’ wildest dreams. There is no beach too remote, nor mountaintop too distant, for us to visit. We are connected to each other as never before: by trade, by internet, by satellite television and mobile phone.