Theme:
The Postal Sector, an essential component
of the global economy.
Your Intervention:The Environment and the
Postal Sector
Geneva, 25 July 2008-Every generation has
its challenges. The challenge for this one
is the environment. Almost every dial on
the sustainability indicator chart is pointing
in the wrong direction.
Limits are being reached
and breeched, whether it be fish stocks;
land degradation; deforestation in Africa;
the price of oil or the price of wheat or
the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Why should all this
matter to the world's postal services?
It matters because postal
services are one the one hand a global business
and on the other hand a social, local good.
You are big bulk buyers
of commodities like oil and paper and local
purchasers of computer systems to paper
clips.
You are also in the
community providing goods and services-from
processing road tax applications to offering
internet access-for villages, towns and
cities.
Your workers often have
a direct and in many ways unique relationship
with the public at the level of the household
and the high street post office counter.
You also interface with
the rich and the poor and the ethnic minorities.
Post men and women and
the world's postal services are thus in
many ways quite special, operating at the
level of the global but also right at the
grassroots.
Thus you are not only
operations able to influence markets and
economies big and small.
You have the position
of role model within communities. And with
that perhaps comes responsibilities.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Businesses and services
in the 21st century will be defined on how
rapidly they implement measures and strategies
to buffet them from the quite dramatic winds
of change sweeping our world.
But also how fast they
recognize and adapt to the equally abundant
opportunities unfolding-opportunities to
transform the way we manage the nature and
natural resources that underpin most if
not all economic activity.
Opportunities to shape
urban living from transport networks; renewable
energies and energy efficient buildings
and waste management to air quality and
social inclusion.
Opportunities to empower
society to join in this transition to a
Green Economy-perhaps a more easily digestible
term for the more familiar concept of sustainable
development.
Individual postal services
are starting to rise to the challenge. In
terms of transport, La Poste in France aims
to have 10,000 of its 60,000 vehicle fleet
electric by 2012.
Australia Post is testing
hybrid trucks and TNT in the Netherlands
is working with UNEP on a Driving Clean
initiative.
In China, and in support
of the Beijing Olympics, postal service
vehicles there will meet Euro IV emissions
standards before the starting pistol fires.
This is a good start.
But the potential is far larger given the
environmental footprint and the opportunity
to tread far more lightly.
With some 660,000 postal
establishments; 250,000 motorcycles; over
600,000 cars, vans and trucks and hundreds
of aircraft; the opportunity to influence
energy-significant industries and green
the procurement; manufacturing and marketing
chains-from automobile and aero-engine manufacturers
to those that produce appliances; inks;
adhesives and paper-is huge.
With five million-perhaps
as many as 10 million-employees, postal
service employ more than the oil and gas
industry (2.3 million).
So in this 60th anniversary
year of UPU, I am delighted that Edouard
Dayan and I have signed an agreement to
first assess the climate footprint of the
world's postal services.
And then offer the UPU's
191 member states a range of solutions to
shrink that footprint.
It is part of a wider
initiative by the UN, under the guidance
of Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, to transform
the institution into a climate neutral one.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I have another proposal
which I would be keen to discuss with you
that also plays to the postal services'
strengths and the need to catalyze public
awareness on climate change.
In late 2009, in Copenhagen,
Denmark member states will gather under
the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
to agree on a new, global regime.
One that truly echoes
to the challenge of stabilizing emissions
to avert nothing less than disaster.
One that unleashes market
forces and human ingenuity. And one that
ensures financial flows to vulnerable societies
to adapt to the climate change already underway.
We had the power of
science-we had the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change-presenting us with the
indisputable facts in 2007.
This made the climate
convention agreement in Bali last year possible.
But we do not have the same lever available
over the next 17 months.
Governments, instead
of putting a first class stamp or an overnight
delivery sticker on their ambitions for
Copenhagen, are at best able to go for second
class at this point in the negotiations.
And some have not got
as far as even writing their climate commitment
letters, let alone purchasing the envelopes
or the stamps.
In short, Copenhagen
could prove to be less a red letter day
and more a notice of foreclosure on the
sustainable development needs of nearly
seven billion people.
Galvanizing local authorities,
businesses and the public, in order to focus
and empower the minds of politicians, thus
must be part of the response and now.
Can the postal services
help? The UN will soon be producing a system-wide
campaign including a logo and slogans to
focus public awareness on the extraordinary
and historic challenge we face less than
500 days from today in Copenhagen.
Your reach is enormous-more
than 430 billion letters, parcels and the
like delivered domestically and annually
alongside some 5.5 billion international
items and over six billion ordinary parcels.
If only a fraction of
these carried the new UN climate logo during
2009, what an impact this could have in
terms of reaching the public on the issue
of our age.
National postal services
often carry environmental themes via special
edition stamps and first day covers.
How about a series on
climate change from your unique national
perspective-the threats, but also the opportunities
from the melting away of glacier and sea
level rise to the potential for renewable
energy such as wind, wave and geothermal.
This is not a pipedream.
UNEP has just partnered with La Poste in
France on just such a product-a book of
stamps featuring sustainable development
issues that also double up as a pocket information
guide.
I better leave it there
except to say that a global partnership
with postal services on the climate change
challenge would not be difficult to initiate.
UNEP already works with
the International Olympic Committee and
Olympic movement on greening the games.
Also with a growing
number of countries; cities and companies-now
even international music festivals-on our
Climate Neutral Network (www.climateneutral.unep.org)
to mention but two examples that have broken
new ground.
I hope you can
tell from my remarks that I prize this new
partnership with the UPU and the postal
services of the world for its potential
for transformation-transformation to accelerate
the 'delivery' to the doorsteps of homes
and businesses everywhere of tomorrow's
economy, today.
