Op-ed: Paris, platform of solutions for sustainable development

On 22 and 23 June, we will be gathering in Paris for the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact. Our shared mission: to galvanize awareness and investment for the implementation of the 2015 Climate Paris Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030, everywhere, especially the most vulnerable countries.

In this “age of consequences”, fraught with the effects of climate change and deepening inequalities, there is an urgent need to take care of our societies and our economies. We need to amplify innovation and overhaul our economic and financial systems. And it is essential to renew the dialogue between the worlds of science, finance and international cooperation to ensure that our public policies are just and sustainable.

This is the ambition of the signatories of this declaration, in all their diversity. We wish to join forces within a single network, with all those wishing to help us make Paris a valuable and fruitful forum for global governance, a hub of solutions for sustainable development, a place where artificial intelligence will be deployed to facilitate the implementation of the SDGs.

Paris has a unique ecosystem. It comprises a large number of schools, and research and higher education institutions, producing generations of brilliant students and researchers. Paris also hosts the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the universal calling of which is about to be strengthened as the United States has just announced its intention to rejoin UNESCO, and which seeks to provide concrete and innovative solutions, including by ensuring that artificial intelligence be used ethically as well as, in the near future, neurotech. This efficiency and innovation-oriented ambition is shared by the International Organization of the Francophonie (OIF) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), which is forging a path to accelerate energy transitions and meet global energy and climate targets.

Paris also has a great number of actors engaged in the transformation of our economies and our financial systems, from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), to the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), Agence Française de Développement (AFD) Group and many others. They have all been transforming their modes of action since 2015 and the success of COP21.

In the approach to the next major international gathering, we are all joining forces to make Paris a great crucible of collective actions for sustainable development, around a common program, open to all actors in Paris, and in partnership with other capitals of global governance, from New York to Rome; from Jakarta, Vienna or Nairobi. What unites us is one overarching objective: to work tirelessly to mobilize the goodwill of all to accelerate the agenda for sustainable development and international solidarity.

Signatories:

Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO

Mathias Cormann, Secretary-General of the OECD

Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA

John Denton, Secretary General of the ICC

Louise Mushikiwabo, Secretary General of the OIF

Carlo Monticelli, Governor of the CEB

Rémy Rioux, Chief Executive Officer of AFD