To make progress we have to build a multi-stakeholder process, harnessing the appropriate energies.

We need to be prepared to have multi-stakeholder, well-managed partnerships. That can be very effective. We saw this happen at international level with the UN Convention on Landmines, for example, where some governments didn't want to go forward, but enough governments did and with them many NGOs. At international level we need to see this as the 21st century way of doing things.

When globalisation means that many of the services that individual governments used to have direct power over are privatised, in education and health, even prison services, nonetheless national sovereignty still needs to be exercised.

If we took away barriers to women's leadership, we would solve the climate change problem a lot faster

I don't think we in Ireland have to follow slavishly what other countries have done. Ireland has its own strengths - in family life, in the local community, in the concept of meitheal, a very traditional form of cooperation in rural Ireland. Three or four or five neighbors get together, exchanging labor, farm equipment, and so on. There are strong solidarity overtones. That tradition is being translated today into community self-development.

Democratic governments are not delivering on their promises, which is partly due to the fact that governments are less powerful than they were after the Second World War. There were fewer governments then, but they actually had more political power.

I can see the immense capacity of business to give leadership.