Brazil, 2009

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

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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

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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.