Strengthening the role the United Nations can play...will require serious examination of the need to extend into the international arena the rule of law and the principle of taxation to finance agreed actions which provide the basis for governance at the national level. But this will not come about easily. Resistance to such changes is deeply entrenched. They will come about not through the embrace of full blown world government, but as a careful and pragmatic response to compelling imperatives and the inadequacies of alternatives.

We owe at least this much to future generations, from whom we have borrowed a fragile planet called Earth.

Nevertheless, the concept of sustainable development is now known - even amongst those who haven't accepted it - and it's recognized, debated and followed by an increasing number of businesses.

I've got used to criticisms and, naturally, I try to make sure I don't listen to the more extreme ones because most of the people who have taken their rightwing extremist view of my life are people that I've never met.

Licences to have babies incidentally is something that I got in trouble for some years ago for suggesting even in Canada that this might be necessary at some point, at least some restriction on the right to have a child.

What pleases me most is that sustainable development is on almost everybody's agenda now.

We're either going to save the world or no one will be saved.