Former ASEAN Secretary-General says Asia must run its own sustainability efforts
As a former Secretary-General of ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs for Thailand, Surin Pitsuwan is no stranger to the developments of Asian countries, their international and financial relations, and how to build a better future for the region.
Speaking about the value and importance of the session, The Asia We Want: A Clean and Green Asia, Pitsuwan highlighted how the session had brought together many of Asia’s talents scattered around the world creating positive change as technocrats, diplomats, scientists, and members of civil society, and gave him hope for the region’s future.
“We do have a lot of expertise [in the region], but being spread around the world. [...] If we try to bring them together and get them focused on some of the issues...of a green and clean Asia – it’s rather heartening to listen to them taking the issue very seriously, bringing their own expertise and their own experiences, to bear on the issues in front of them.”
Recognizing the scope of the challenges ahead, Pitsuwan argued that a grand, coordinated response is needed: “The problems are too big for any one individual, one discipline or one sector. Certainly don’t leave it to the international institutions, don’t leave it to the private sector, don’t leave it to the academic institutions... We need cooperation, we need coordination and we need certainly passionate commitment from the younger generation because the world is theirs,” he said.
While he hoped the next generation of leaders would find new, innovative solutions, he urged them to remember and build on all the good foundations that have been laid down before them, recalling the famous words of Sir Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”
When asked about elements that put ASEAN’s sustainability efforts in jeopardy, Pitsuwan urged ASEAN “to be conscious of the fact that...there are some [skeptics] that are in positions of leadership and power.” But he remained optimistic: “That could turn around” as these prominent skeptics begin to recognize that environmental degredation and climate change will negatively impact the global community as a whole. This growing common sense of an urgent challenge “has driven the global community to try to help and collaborate and support Asia’s search for their own solutions.”
These solutions need to be wide-ranging. and region-led “We need a multi-dimensional approach to many of these global challenges or even regional challenges... [National leaders] need to understand the context and complexity of all these problems,” he said.
“ASEAN will have to get together and adopt a common approach... [We need to] create our own resources, our own funding, raise the awareness among our own people... It has to be a regional approach, it has to be a collaborative effort among the countries in the region,” he urged.
This regional approach is all the more important, Pitsuwan argued, in light of the West turning inward, as exemplified by Brexit and US President Donald J. Trump’s “America First” foreign policy: “It is sending us the signal that we can’t depend on the generosity of the rest of the world forever,” he said.
Pitsuwan hoped that upon leaving the session, the Fellows would take their new knowledge and networks back with them to the region and use and build on them in the years of their careers to come. While the 25 young leaders who took part in the Salzburg session still have long careers ahead of them, the time to act is now, not far ahead in the future, he warned. “If we’re not careful, [environmental degredation] is going to go beyond the point of return.”
But Pitsuwan remained optimistic: “That sense of urgency and sense of collective awareness [that was displayed in Salzburg] is extremely inspiring – powerful.”
Salzburg Global Seminar is sad to have learned Surin has passed away since he attended the session. We share our sincerest condolences with his family.
Session 591 - The Asia We Want: Building Community Through Regional Cooperation I - A Clean and Green Asia- is the first session of a new multi-year series held in partnership with the Japan Foundation. For more information on the Session, please click here. To keep up to date with the conversations taking place during the session on social media, follow #SGSasia.
