Mr President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

10 years have passed since the Earth Summit. Is the world today closer to sustainable development compared to a decade ago?

On the economic front, the global economic pie is now some 40 % bigger than 10 years ago. On the social front, global life expectancy has increased by 2 years in the past decade. On the environment front, awareness of environmental concerns has grown significantly.

However, the world we live in today continues to be threatened by degradation of the environment, be it loss of forests, worsening of marine pollution, or increased lack of access to freshwater. The list goes on. Indeed, we are seeing the widening of global divides, both economic and social. This is not sustainable.

Sustainable development is our common challenge. We must not allow our economic growth and social progress in the near term to lead us to environmental disasters in the long term. It is important that all of us, as responsible members of the global community, take immediate individual and collective actions. We need to do much more in our own countries to harmonize economic growth, social progress and environmental protection. We also need to do a lot more in our respective regions and across the globe to broaden the base and scope of progress. Only by helping ourselves and by helping each other, will we be able to bridge the various economic, social and environmental global divides.

Singapore is committed to doing our part. As a small city-state with no natural endowment, we face an uphill task as we strive to achieve sustainable development. However, Singapore believes that with strong political will, business innovation, and stronger multi-stakeholder partnerships, we can achieve environmental sustainability.

In Singapore, we have set ourselves a series of major targets for the next 10 years under the Singapore Green Plan 2012, our roadmap towards sustainable development. This SGP 2012 is a roadmap jointly formulated by our 3"P" partners (i.e. Public, Private, People sectors). It reflects the collective commitment of the Singapore Government, businesses and the people to build an enduring Singapore for generations to come.

On waste management, we do not have enough land for landfill. To overcome the problem of solid waste disposal, we minimize waste production, maximize recycling and strive for best practices to move "towards zero landfill". For water, our conventional sources of water supply will not be able to meet our growing demand for water in the long term. We are pursuing non-conventional sources of supply. We are turning every drop of water into more than one drop by reclaiming clean water from used water. For clean air, we are highly urbanized and industrialized.

To do our part to alleviate global warming, we promote the use of clean energy and the efficient use of energy.

The SGP 2012 is not an inward-looking action plan. Singapore is committed to doing more with members of the global community through joint capacity building programmes. We will continue to work closely with countries in the ASEAN region, as well as fellow developing countries farther away. Our technical cooperation programmes have since reached out to hundreds of people from more than 50 countries. We seek to do more in future.

Singapore is also actively seeking to further its role in various partnership initiatives in areas where Singapore is in a position to share and contribute our experience and expertise. We look forward to working with our fellow small island developing states on its Pacific initiative relating to water and sanitation; partnering with the Government of Indonesia and others on good governance in sustainable development; and strengthening the capacity within ASEAN to manage transboundary haze pollution.

Sustainable development is not an unattainable goal. As long as we have the political will, we can find a sustainable way to make this world a better place for all to live in, for a long time to come.

I hope that every country, big or small, developed or developing, can set clear targets and priorities, and take concrete action to harmonize economic growth, social progress and environment protection.

By doing our part in our own countries, and by extending a helping hand to our partners in the region and globally, we can bring our planet Earth one major step closer to sustainable development, 10 years from now.

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