President of the Institute for Ecological Civilization
Professor Philip Clayton
Ingraham Professor, President, Institute for Ecological Civilization | USA
Short Bio:
Prof. Philip Clayton is the President of the Institute for Ecological Civilization. As a visionary thinker, Prof. Clayton leads EcoCiv in expanding and deepening its mission at the intersections of environment and humanity. With several decades of experience in university-based research, teaching, and lecturing, Prof. Clayton is involved in the conceptual development of all EcoCiv’s projects and ensures mission fit. He assists project leaders about intersectional societal changes relevant for their particular projects. Prof. Clayton holds a PhD from Yale University; has held guest professorships at Harvard, University of Cambridge, and University of Munich. He is the author and editor of several dozen books and over 300 articles on science, ethics, religion.
Event: SDGs Conference 2024 | Date: Sept 25, 2024 |
SPEECH
I open with warm thanks on behalf of all the participants to our hosts and to the Journalists and Writers Foundation for organizing this year’s meeting. I first met with leading writers and journalists from JWF over a decade ago in Istanbul. Today we celebrate almost a decade of JWF support for the Sustainable Development Goals at the United Nations. Although many do not recognize it, there is a useful barometer for assessing our overall progress on the SDGs. In the good years, we are laser-focused on the details of implementing specific programs within a single SDG (or several together).
These are the seasons of optimism and progress. You can watch the global community rolling up its collective sleeves and solving the difficult challenges in particular areas. When on-the-ground changes are being made and outcomes are measurable, there is energy and hope. In my organization, EcoCiv, we saw this productivity during our consultation on the urban water crisis in Cape Town just before COVID-19; we saw it more recently as we helped the NGO Water for South Sudan launch its new Water Institute last year.
As you know from the SDG reports in 2023 and 2024, this is not one of those moments. The famous words of António Guterres are echoing in our ears: “Unless we act now,” he said, “the 2030 Agenda will become an epitaph for a world that might have been.” Indeed, many of us heard a similar message from the Environment Minister of Samoa, Cedric Schuster, in her interview just two days ago. Speaking as Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, Minister Schuster worried that [fingers] “our countries are moving further and further away from the unity and moral fortitude that we require to protect our people.” She then said the truth bluntly: “The vulnerable people of our world are drained by lip service.” With six years to go, with many of the metrics heading in the wrong direction, and with wars expanding, there is no doubt about the gravity of this moment.
Fortunately, it’s the tradition of this series of SDG summit meetings not to dwell in darkness, but instead to look for where the hope lies … and to listen and learn as global experts in the specific SDGs identify the pathways to get us there. We will hear innovative ideas, novel solutions, and calls to action in the three panels that follow. In preparation for the work that lies ahead of us today, and in the years to come, I offer three images as a framework for these discussions.
Dark times require a guiding light. Today every study underscores the widening disparity between the nations that are contributing most to global warming and those who are suffering its worst effects. There is no longer any doubt: the climate crisis is not “just” an environmental issue; it’s a matter of global justice. So let this be our guiding light in dark moments: Global justice is the starting point of our SDG work and the final destination of all our specific initiatives. The light of justice does shine in the darkness, and the darkness shall not overcome it. We turn our eyes to the future to direct our steps today. Four days ago, Assembly President Philémon Yang lowered his gavel at the General Assembly, and the Pact for the Future became a United Nations consensus statement.
Hear the words: “The Heads of State and Government, representing the peoples of the world, gathered at UN Headquarters, to protect the needs and interests of present and future generations, through the actions in this Pact for the Future.” It is a Pact for “all those generations that do not yet exist and who will inherit this planet.”
We labor for the SDGs on behalf of future generations, even as we struggle to achieve the goals in the present. But why? Why should future generations be our ultimate moral guide? It’s because of what’s called the “intergenerational multiplier effect.” When humans living today cause the destruction of a rainforest, or the death of coral, or the loss of the Thwaites Glacier or the Antarctic ice sheets, these losses affect not just today’s population, but each of the countless future generations yet to be born onto this beautiful blue-green planet. This is why the Pact for the Future “resolves to ensure that present generations act with responsibility to safeguard the needs and interests of future generations.” We work toward the SDGs not only because of the suffering we see around us today, but on behalf of the rights of those yet to come.
Remember when Greta Thornberg was asked, “You’re always talking about ‘1.5 degrees Celsius’ as the upper limit of warming; So what do you do when the earth passes your 1.5 maximum?” Without missing a beat, Greta responded, “I start fighting for a maximum of 1.6.” So also, for us: We are fighting hard for the SDG targets by 2030. But our work continues as long as there are generations still to come. We turn our eyes to the future to direct our steps today.
I want to present a framework that we and many others are using around the world: ecological civilization. This combination of two words points to the place where the values of ecology and the values of the global community come together. For surely the heart of the SDGs is found in the harmony of human and ecological values. The UN’s vision is to celebrate the immense diversity of cultures and ecosystems, joined together by our unwavering commitment to justice and sustainability for all. And the SDGs are what happens when this vision puts on its working clothes and gets to work. Ecological civilization is the wedding of ecology and global justice. Ecology + civilization means ecological harmony for ecosystems, and compassionate justice for human communities.
Last year I walked in the ancient forests of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Jingmai Mountain. On this mountain in Southwest China, indigenous people have planted and cultivated tea trees for over 1000 years. This working together of natural resources and human cultivation has created some of the finest green tea on the planet. To walk in this tea forest, to smell and see its riches, is to experience the harmony of nature, culture, and economy, held together by traditional indigenous spirituality. Each of us must have our image of what success looks like. This image, this dream for the future of our blue-green planet, then becomes our guiding light, our inspiration, our motivation. When I think of the 17 SDGs, I picture Jingmai Mountain.
Remember: Dark times require a guiding light. And we turn our eyes to the future to direct our steps today.