Mr President I want to thank you and your Environment Minister Valli Moosa for taking this initiative and bringing everyone here for this seminar in Johannesburg.

It has been an invigorating experience. It has re-doubled my determination to make the Johannesburg Summit a success. And it has greatly helped me to broaden my perspective and to focus my ideas.

The UK has always attached great importance to Johannesburg. Tony Blair was the first leader to commit himself to attend. And this seminar has confirmed the need for high level political leadership.

Tony Blair made his commitment before September 11. After September 11 it is even more important. We have to show the world that globalisation can be a force for good as well as to tackle evil - winning the peace as well as the war.

Mr President, as you know from your work on the Middle East Peace Process we are working against a very uncertain global background.

So failure at Johannesburg is just unacceptable.

If it were to happen it would set back sustainable development by ten to twenty years. We must succeed. In order to do that we must define success.

If we do not, others – in particular the press and NGOs – will define failure.

And in delivering success we need to be ambitious in our aspirations but realistic in their application.

My Prime Minister asked me last October to play a personal role for him in the run up to Johannesburg. In the last six months, I have met 30 Prime Ministers, Presidents and Heads of State and close to 100 Ministers to discuss WSSD.

When I have spoken to Ministers who are closely involved in the process there is a great desire to make Johannesburg a success. My concern is that when I raise it with leaders – and I must be frank – for many of them it’s not on their radar screen, at least not at this stage.

Thanks to the work of Professor Salim on the Plan of Action we are now much closer to understanding what Johannesburg is about.

The essential first step to increase the momentum between now and Johannesburg is for Bali to agree the Plan of Action.

That means we must not overburden the beast. The Plan of Action will require consensus. And consensus means compromise.

There are already hundreds of ideas in the Plan of Action. Most of them we can all sign up to. But some of them are controversial.

Our environment Ministers will meet at Bali to agree the Plan of Action. We encourage other ministers to attend – but we must be realistic and Bali will be primarily a meeting of environment Ministers.

Their job is to get an agreement which is as ambitious as possible. But the most important thing is that negotiations should not break down.

Of course it would be good to have a new fund such as those proposed for Bali to tackle poverty or to promote sustainable development.

But is that something we can really hope Bali will agree?

I’m not saying I don’t want new funds to be agreed at Bali or Johannesburg. You only have to look at our Chancellor’s proposals for a fifty billion dollar Development Trust Fund to see the UK’s commitment to increasing levels of development aid.

What I am saying, however, is that we mustn’t let negotiations break down on issues which are simply not yet ready.

The key thing then, as several people said yesterday, is to agree the plan of action at Bali.

That will require flexibility on all sides to secure consensus and I wish my good friend Professor Salim the best of luck.

The limitations which we must acknowledge on the role of Bali, I think, answers the question put so clearly in the seminar yesterday:

• Why should there be a Johannesburg Summit and what value will it add?

Johannesburg will bring together world leaders – at least it will if we do our job and prepare for it properly.

Gathered together those leaders will make a strong political statement simply by recommitting to the values set out at Rio.

That is valuable in itself, but also because things have changed since Rio. Some people said yesterday that nothing had happened since Rio.

I would dispute that. Rio may not have achieved everything, but by September we will hopefully be very close to bringing Kyoto into force. We have the Biodiversity Convention, the Forum on Forests, the Desertification Convention. And more than six thousand communities have programmes for Agenda 21.

In addition to that success on the environmental side there have of course been other major changes since Rio.

Globalisation has come to the fore. There are plenty who argue it is a force for evil. One of our main tasks at the Summit is to show that it can be a force for good. A force for sustainable development.

Since Rio civil society has become much more closely involved in the process – both on the NGO and business side, as Nitin Desai said yesterday. In many parts of the world development has raced ahead at an astounding pace. And others have experienced a period of unprecedented prosperity.

We have seen the restructuring of the global economy, the continued growth of the service industry and of course an amazing revolution in information and communication technology.

The time has now come to put the Rio values in a modern setting.

The genuine groundswell of emotion and excitement which surrounded Rio – and the action taken since then – failed to recognise that Rio was about much more than just the environment.

It was about the three mutually reinforcing pillars of sustainable development:

• economic growth,
• social development and
• environmental protection.

Having sat here yesterday that sounds old news. But it is the job of Johannesburg to ensure that it is recognised in action rather than just in words.

Johannesburg can make it’s landmark contribution by recommitting to the Rio values in their modern setting, which recognises that environmental protection is only one of the three pillars of sustainable development.

The political declaration will be the most important product of Johannesburg.

It should, as I said, endorse the idea that globalisation can be a force for good and for sustainable development.

Political leaders should give the same commitment to the fight against poverty that they have given for the fight against terrorism.

The agreement should reaffirm our commitment to Agenda 21 and to the Millennium Development Goals.

It should put in place a route map from Johannesburg to the Millennium Development Goals in 2015.

Each of the different conventions established at Rio has its own target and timetable. The Commission on Sustainable Development was designed to bring them together.

Frankly, it has not given the process the political priority it requires.

I think we should consider a process for the Secretary General to produce a report every five years to monitor our progress across the board.

And – crucially – it should be discussed at the highest level by leaders.

The political declaration should firmly establish the three pillars of sustainable development as the guiding principles for action.

And, as I said yesterday, don’t forget social justice. What does sustainable development mean in practice? It means greater prosperity for everyone, but more help for those that need it most. More help for those at the threshold of sustainability. Those who can only dream of a sustainable future.

That, I believe, should be the key message of the Summit. In an era of globalisation the world is not going to forget those who are in danger of being left behind.

Yes of course we must advance universally for all. But we must also recognize that some are in danger of being left behind and need more help than others.

Progressive universalism I called it yesterday. Sustainable development for all but more for those who need it most.

And that brings me to Africa.

It is fitting that the Summit will be held here in Africa where Agenda 21 has so far failed to deliver. Mr President, I heard you refer in you inauguration speech to this being the time for an African Renaissance.

So Johannesburg must recognise NEPAD and the needs of Africa. That is not special treatment for one region over any other. It is recognition of the gap between Africa and the rest of the world. Under the principle of progressive universalism Africa deserves special help as a right and not as a favour.

The process of progressive universalism has already started. Doha, Monterrey and the environmental conventions all recognise the needs of developing countries and the least developed countries in particular.

And Monterrey in particular also recognises the importance of good governance in the process of sustainable development. That is something that cannot be under estimated.

As President Obasanjo said to me, "I pull on the levers and nothing happens". That is what happens after corruption has torn the heart out of a government.

Johannesburg is not the place to renegotiate Doha, Monterrey, or any of these agreements. But it should build on those foundations and put the processes and commitment in place to take them forward in line with the principles of sustainable development.

Nitin Desai said yesterday that Doha had put development into trade and that Monterrey had put development into Finance.

Johannesburg should do more than that and put the "sustainable" into "development".

As Minister Johnson said yesterday, we need to "green" the poverty reduction strategies and other elements of the development process, such as NEPAD and Monterrey.

Minister Johnson also rightly pointed to the need to rationalize the burden of reporting for developing countries. She argued that they did not need to produce sustainable development strategies as well as poverty reduction strategies.

Again this is a case of progressive universalism. For the least developed countries, which have not even reached the threshold of sustainability, the poverty reduction strategy must be the priority, provided it takes account of sustainability. Other developing countries further up the ladder should be progressing on a sustainable path.

I turn Mr President to the key players required to deliver success at Johannesburg.

This is a leaders Summit. And we now need to engage leaders as well as Environment and other Ministers.

There are processes we can build on:

• G8 leaders meet in Canada in June and you will join them there Mr President;

• just before that there is President Cardoso’s excellent initiative to bring together the ‘baton bearers’ – the Prime Minister of Sweden, the country which hosted the Stockholm Conference in 1972, President Cardoso himself, you Mr President and President of Indonesia

• there is the ASEM meeting of Foreign Ministers in June; and

• the European leaders meet in Seville also in June.

These are the events where we can press the message and it is up to each and everyone of us here today to go home and do what we can to ensure that Johannesburg features on the agendas of these meetings.

In addition to that, we all need to keep working hard on initiatives for Rio that will make a difference in the real world.

One of the really exciting things about Johannesburg is the partnerships involving some or all of government, business, UN agencies and NGOs.

All of us have a responsibility to go away and push these initiatives hard between now and September.

For the next three or four weeks, however, the focus is on our friend Professor Salim. We must all make every effort to help him finish the Plan of Action and set the framework for the political declaration.

Beyond Bali all of us in this room need to play our part in delivering Johannesburg. UN Agencies. Business. NGOs.

And we in Government need to engage leaders as I have set out. I shall certainly do all I can in that regard.

Mr President, we live in a world where a child dies every ten seconds from preventable water borne diseases and in which a billion people live on less than a dollar a day.

That is unacceptable to all of us – politicians and citizens alike. As is the fact that we are denying our grandchildren the natural heritage that we inherited from our grandparents. Johannesburg is the opportunity to face up to our responsibilities and the world will not forgive us if we fail to do so.

My Prime Minister and I are fully behind in the enormous challenge before you. And I know from my time here that everyone in this room stands ready to do all they can to help you make Johannesburg a success that we must deliver.