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guests and those who are listening to us from YouTube. Good morning. the Pontipical Catholic University Region has the honor to receive you for this master class that is going to be given by the director of the Columbia University Sustainable Development Center from the University of Colombia and the president of the sustainable development solution network of the UN professor Jeffrey Sax who is going to be tackling the topic Brazil sustainable development and and a multipolar world. We'd like to invite the president of the University of uh the Cattle University of Reiro, Patrick Anderson, Antonio Pedroso, vice

president of the um Brazilian International Relations. center. Ambassador Jer Alfredo Graasel Lima and the director of the sustainable development uh center of the University of Colombia and president of the uh sustainable development solution network, Professor Jeffrey Saxs. We will start by hearing Father Anderson Antonio Pedro. Good morning everyone. It's a great pleasure to have you here today, especially our dear professor Jeffrey Saxs. We were at the space next door which is called our common house near the design tents. We just inaugurated uh together with professor Jeffrey. Uh we just planted a tree. So that's why

our hands are a little dirty with soil. Jeffrey, Professor Jeffrey is symbolizes a paradigm. He wants to make a symbol of this meeting. Not just intellectual exchange of ideas but also concrete material planting roots through some initiatives. So I have been very happy to witness that by thanking everyone for being here today. It is a special joy to see gather at this room our students, professors, program coordinators, department directors, vice directors and members of the pukaro development council whose daily dedication whose daily dedication sustains the academic mission of our university. I also wish to extend

a special thanks to Ambassador Jose Alfredo Ari Gracal Lima Jose Fredo Gracal Lima who honors us with his presence and on this occasion represents the institutional partnership between Poker Rio and the Brazilian Center for International Relations SEBI. In this spirit that since 2012 we have been working in close cooperation with the sustainable development solution network SDSN and Pukeru is proud to serve as the host institutions for SDSN Brazil. Today as we renew our commitment to SDSN Brazil we do so we do so from the representative of our common house. This home stands as a meeting

point between the SDG's Lato C and the UN to 2030 agenda which we will re revisit shortly in light of the reflections Professor Saxs will share with us. By uniting science, faith, justice, and love, we are committed to the formation of individuals who are inspired by the four dreams expresses expressed in the apostolic exhortation kerida Amazonia by Pope Francis. The ecological dream, the social dream, the cultural dream, and the community dream. We are also living a special moment, the Jubilee year of 2025. The Jubilee is a time for justice, mercy, and renewal. As such, it

offers a moral lens through which we are called to examine this the sovereignity, depth, crisis, and its impact of human development. The bull of indication of the jubilee year is pass nonconformed calls for depth conversion as a matter of justice and solidarity. This theme will be explored in in greater depth next week with the participation of more than 200 representatives for from universities, civil society organization and public institution at the 10 years of Laatoi Congress a preparatory meeting for COP 30. The event is being organized by Pukar Rio in partnership with key allies such as

the pontificical commission for the Latin American and the university network for the care of our common house rook. It is more than just an academic initiative. It is supported by Pope Leo I 14th who has embar em embraced the commitment to continue and deepen the pro the process initiated by Pope Francis. I was with Pope Leo the 30th the 40th two weeks ago. So it's true. It's true. We are so so happy. The objective of the Congress is both clear and concrete to present practical proposals for COP 30 drawn from a variety of perspectives to

help bring about real transformation in people's life, especially those to the most poor and and vulnerable. Dear Jeffrey Saks, you represent your presence this moment this morning is therefore an opportunity for encounter. welcome and share responsibility across generations. It is also a sign of active hope, one that calls on us to move forward with courage, seriousness and solidarity in face the challenges of our time. Thank you very much. [Applause] We'd like to take the opportunity to thank Eduardo Da Silva, Alexim. They are sign language interpreters and they are here making this event a more inclusive

one. Now we give the floor to the vice president of the curator council of the Brazilian international relations center, Ambassador Joseph Federas Lima. And uh as already mentioned, I'm vice president of the Brazilian Center for International Relations, EBI. Uh I'd like to begin by expressing my sincere appreciation to professor and recctor Father Anderson Petrosu for his introductory remarks, his kind words, and for the warm welcome extended to all to all of us. I would also like to reiterate Seb's deep appreciation for our ongoing partnership with the Pukiu an institution distinguished by its academic excellence, ethical

commitment and inaugurative spirit. I'm a suspect to speak about Puki because I this is my alma mater and uh uh on behalf of Sabo Mrs. Julia Gate here present and uh chairman of our board of trustes Joseph Pio Boures. It is a real privilege to uh welcome you all to this important gathering to extend a special greeting to our distinguished guest professor Jeffrey D. Saxs. We are honored to receive Professor Saxs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and one of the most influential global voices on the subject of sustainable development. His

presence here today provides a valuable opportunity to reflect on the challenges and opportunities facing Brazil in the context of an increasingly multipolar world and to consider how the country might better align its public policies, institutional capacities, academic production to contribute meaningfully to global sustainable development. This dialogue is particularly timely as Brazil seeks to reaffirm its international leadership and help shape a more equitable and environmentally responsible global order. So with these brief remarks, I now have the honor of inviting Professor Saxs to deliver his address and thanking you all for your present and wishing us a

fruitful and inspiring event. Thank you. Jeffrey Sax president Jeffrey Sykes is president of the um global network for sustainable development of the United Nations and he is recognized for his uh contributions to economic development reduction reducing production and fighting climate change. He's also co-president of uh engineer council for energy transition and a commissioner of uh broadband ofu for the development. He was a special adviser of three general secretaries of the United Nations for over 20 years. He was a professor at the university of Harvard where he obtained a bachelor, a master and a doctor degree.

He has received 42 Dr. Anares kum and m his most recent awards the tank sustainable development award from 2022 the legion of honor by a decree of the president of France as well as the order of the cross from the president of Estonia. His most recent books are the ages of globalization, geography, technology, and institutions from 2020 as well as ethics and action for sustainable development from 2022. We would like now to invite Professor Jeffrey Saxs to start his master class. Thank you for having me at Puket Rio. It's always a an absolute delight to

be here and and a great honor. Thank you to the ambassador and to the director for organizing and and hosting this uh gathering and I'm most grateful to to all of you and I also want to thank Serbri a truly remarkable institution which provides vital leadership for Brazil and for the world at the very unusual times that we are living in. I have a half an hour to describe a few hundred years of uh of events and many hours that I'd like to share with you about the complexity of our time. But let me say

that it is not a coincidence that Brazil hosted the G20 last year and this year will host two absolutely critical gatherings. the BRICS summit in July and COP 30 in November. Many things converge in this remarkable country and many of the global processes that are underway find a focal point in Brazil. So the fact that Brazil within the space of essentially a a calendar year will host three decisive meetings of the G20, the largest now 21 economies of the world because remember that the African Union has become the 21st member of what was the G20.

the most important gathering on climate and the most important gathering of countries creating the new multi-polar world is both extremely important and not quite accidental. I think Brazil in a way is one of the remarkable points of convergence of the global agenda. Perhaps the epitome of that convergence because Brazil in many ways is both the meeting point of we could say the old and the new world. uh a meeting point that uh took place uh in today's Brazil 525 years ago or I guess according to some historians 526 years ago when the European voyages first

made landfall uh in modernday Brazil that established a dynamic which transformed the world for hundreds of years. This is also a meeting point of societies. This is one of the most complex cultures and societies in the world because of course it's a melding of many peoples, many races, many histories, many roots. Uh partly because of that meeting that took place 525 years ago. It's also the world's center of biodiversity which we struggle to preserve in a world that is not organized to defend biodiversity or to recognize and understand biodiversity. This institution is unique in additional

ways. Of course, the fact that it is a pontipical university is extraordinarily important and the fact that the most important statement about the meeting points of the world and the meeting of the economy and nature was made by Pope Pope Francis uh in 2015 in Latoya and that it is going to be celebrated next week is no small matter. And of course, the Catholic Church remains uh perhaps one of our two or three global institutions. For a long time, it wasn't rivaled really, but now it has the UN at least as not a rival, but

as a counterpart of an international institution. And I think it's also notable that probably what I uh have the honor to direct the UN sustainable development solutions network which is a network of universities around the world. The first global network of universities of course was the Jesuits. So uh you got there first by about 400 years. I've been taking notes uh trying to understand how it's done. I think it was extremely important that Matai and other Jesuits reached China and spread uh knowledge in both directions. Uh we call Confucious Confucious because the that's the latinization

of Kungu. Uh and it's the latinization because the Jesuits brought back the teachings of Confucious to Europe in the 17th century. So that was a very important exchange and the exchange of course went in the other direction uh bringing astronomy and mathematical knowledge uh that was developing in Europe by the way which had come from India and the ar and the Islamic world uh then to Europe and then to China via the Jesuits is also a very important linkage. So you reflect something unique also of our time. Uh the challenge of making a world that

makes sense. And my main point in talking about Brazil sustainable development in the multipolar world is that we have entered a new era in the 21st century. the voyages of Columbus and Cabaral and Vaspuchcci and Vasco Dama in the 1490s changed the world in a decisive way for 500 years. And it's interesting that the guru of economics, Adam Smith, writing in 1776, the wealth of nations said that the two most significant events in the history of mankind were the voyages of Columbus and Vasco Dama. And he said that's because they connected the world in a

way that had never been connected before at least since 13,000 years ago when the bearing straight still connected the old and the new world uh connecting Asia and North America. But since the holysine era, of course, Smith did not know the details, but he knew that the world had not been connected until these oceanic voyages. And in one of the most humane and remarkable passages that I know of in all of scientific and humanistic literature, Smith wrote in 1776 the following, which I paraphrase. He said by the world coming together in this way in principle

this should be a great advance for the world because by connecting the world each part of the world could help to meet the needs and the wants of other parts of the world. remember he was the great champion of trade. And then he noted in this passage in the wealth of nations that when that meeting took place, it turned out because of the context and the circumstances of history that the natives of the East and West Indies, as he called them in 1776, suffered mightily at the hands of the Europeans. And he said this was

an accident because at the time of the meeting there was such unequal power that one side succumbed and suffered a descent into misery when it should have been a meeting of mutual benefit. And then he writes in 1776, so 250 years ago, that over time he expects the connections of the world to rebalance the world in a way that the those suffering at his time in 1776 would later gain knowledge and power to the point where they would be able to have an equal force against those who had been oppressing them. And he said that

equality of force would established for then a justice in the world in which all parts of the world would live together in a kind of equality. And he said the thing that would bring together that equality of force would be the rise of knowledge throughout all parts of the world occasioned by international trade. It's three of the smartest paragraphs that I know of in uh all of the writing that I've uh ever been lucky to read in in my professional life. He says connecting the world was decisive but it didn't lead to mutual benefit but

someday in the future it will lead to mutual benefit and trade will be the instrumentality that brings about this convergence of power respect and therefore a new equilibrium of justice paraphrasing his terms Well, Adam Smith got it mostly right. He missed one point, which I think our distinguished member from Field Cruz would well appreciate. Adam Smith did not understand that what harmed the Native Americans so much was the pathogens brought by the Europeans even as much as uh the conquests because it was smallox and typhus uh and other oldw world diseases brought to a virgin

population that had never seen these diseases that led to a decline of 90 or 95% of the indigenous populations of the Americas within a 100red-year period. And that was absolutely an unprecedented occurrence. Even the black death of Europe in 1347 led to a decline of about 30% not 90%. So the exchange of microbial uh pathogens uh across the old and new world divide was the event that Smith could not understand in 1776 but helps to explain his observation. But my point ladies and gentlemen is that basically Smith predicted the world that we've arrived at in

the 21st century. Because what has happened is there is a fundamental rebalancing of the world underway right now and the bricks represents that. The fact that President Lula is in China today represents that. The fact that he was in Moscow a few days ago represents that we have arrived at a multi-olar world and we did it basically in the way that Adam Smith said it would happen actually through the diffusion of knowledge and trade. The Jesuits did it not through trade. They did it through straight diffusion of knowledge. So that's a very important channel. That's

a unique role of universities in the world. We should be spreading knowledge. The aim of knowledge is to spread. It is not to be held as patents and private uh ownership. We don't want science to be patented. Uh we don't believe that uh E= MC² or the Schroinger wave equation is subject to intellectual property rights. We believe that that's a heritage for everybody. and that it's the role of the universities to share that knowledge. Sometimes our politicians or so-called strategists, though I wonder if they really know anything about strategy, uh think differently. They think that

uh power is the essence, but power is of course not the essence. Uh we're not after power, we're after well-being. Uh and this I think is the most important point and the universities play that role. But trade, as Adam Smith noted in 1776, also plays a fundamental role in enabling regions that are poorer or laggered or for whatever reason in history technologically behind other powers or nations to catch up. And that of course is the decisive truth of what's happening in the world today. And most importantly from 1980 until today, China based largely on international

trade and very hard work in China and high investment rates and high education rates and a very concerted national effort with a great deal of national consensus to it was able to close the gap between where China was in 1980 as an impoverished country that had been through more than a century of upheaval and invasions from the rest of the world to what it is today. One of course the two superpowers of the world and a country that is at the cutting edge of the world economy and world technology. And it did that largely through

trade and investment as well as through the hard work of education and scientific research and and technological research and development. This has brought us to a new era on the whole a very positive development but also a risky development for 500 years. One could say the European world in which I include the United States and uh other uh British offshoots either were in the ascendancy of power or dominated the world. Western domination probably is accurately dated only from 1750 roughly until 2000. So about 250 years. The first 250 years was conquest. The second 250 years

was domination. And that is a 500year period in which uh Europe was either in the ascendancy or in the global lead and hegemony and domination of the world. And it's ended now. And during the last 50 years of that domination, roughly from 1950 to the year 2000, the United States wore the uh the crown of uh of the the world hegeimon of a hegemonic region. Britain still think thought it still thinks till today it's the world hegeimon. By the way, Britain, I don't know if it will ever get over. Uh it's uh roughly 150 years

of world domination, but Keith Starmer definitely thinks he's Lord Palmerston. Uh and um this is a continuing saga. and Mcronone does have a few Napoleonic complexes as well, but the United States became the dominant power of course at the end of World War II. It became that dominant power for two overwhelming reasons. One was the Atlantic Ocean and the second was the Pacific Ocean. uh and that is that it was the part of the world not physically destroyed by the two world wars. Uh and in fact there was only one day of attack in two

world wars on American soil and that was December 7th 1941 uh in the naval base at Pearl Harbor. Other than that America built a huge industrial economy on the basis of two world wars. uh and also with the inflow of the world's uh creme de la creme of scientific talent as the scientists of Europe escaped Hitler and came to the US shores in the 1930s so that by 1945 the United States had the only standing industrial base in the world a continental scale economy and the world's leading physicists and technologists. Quite a potent combination. And

the United States dominated the world scene for the next 50 years. But because of these fundamental ideas of the diffusion of knowledge, because crucially of political independence that came to European colonies and European colonies in Africa, in parts of the Americas such as the Caribbean, uh, and throughout Asia got their independence Not, by the way, in truth so much by winning it, though they fought heroically for it, but because Europe committed self-destruction in two world wars and so could not maintain its empires even if they had wanted to. With that independence came the most fundamental

possibility of self-determination and education of the population. The main thing that the imperial powers did in the rest of the world was prevent the spread of education. And the main thing that independence enabled was mass education, literacy, and eventually science and technology to spread everywhere. And so beginning around 1950, the US dominated the world. But the forces of technological diffusion and trade spread technologies to the rest of the world. And broadly speaking, since the middle of the 20th century, there has been a process of economic convergence worldwide. meaning that there's been a tendency for countries

that are technologically behind the North Atlantic region, the dominant region to catch up step by step gradually with the dominant region and in some cases such as China and countries throughout East Asia, Korea, uh Singapore obviously uh places like Taiwan and Hong Kong uh and then now China, the catching up is essentially complete. Uh and so the world became more and more balanced. Not every region succeeded in convergence and Latin America is one of the absolutely fascinating and complex stories where the economic dynamism did not match the cultural scientific uh sophistication and uh something that

we might be able to chat more about. But broadly speaking from 1950 to 2000 a multipolar world step by step was being built. Now one footnote to that is important. The American mindset when you are the hgeimon it creates a delusional environment and America became a country of delusions. uh the country that I grew up in, I saw the delusions close up. Power really is intoxicating and when you have it, you believe you have it by right. This is also something we learn from history. Every dominant power justifies their power not through their luck or

their nastiness or their uh um deployment of force but through God's grace or through uh through the superiority of cultures or through genetic superiority or all of the arguments that have been used throughout history that we look back on and are absolutely shocked uh that they were invoked. And I should add as a footnote that uh the greatest of our thinkers and the most universalist of our thinkers and I would put Emanuel Kant for example at the very top of the list of the European Enlightenment was an outandout racist. Uh and this is quite shocking

but it shows the vulnerability of everybody to this kind of tendency that when you're ahead you can justify that in uh many many ways. Well, suffice it to say in the US this went to the head and in December 1991 when the Soviet Union ended and uh broke apart into 15 successor states of the Soviet Union. The 15 republics of the Soviet Union became independent sovereign states. The US had a field day of arrogance. thinking that this is the end of history and moreover it is the the US has thereby become the sole superpower of

the world for as far as the eye can see. There are no challengers. There are no rivals. There is just US power. And the idea took hold. We call it neoconservatism. But it was a quite widely held view that the United States now runs the world and it is the policeman of the world, a role that it proudly assesses and it can go to war or overthrow governments when and where it wants. So just as the world was catching up, the United States was deciding we're all alone forever and ever. That is a clash of

idea, arrogance, and reality. And that clash hit us in the first quarter of the 21st century because the United States deployed its power, which undoubtedly was vast, in multiple wars, in multiple coups, in multiple major adventures and escapades around the world. just at the time that actually a multi-olar world was being built. And I mention all of this because all of the conflicts that we have now, almost all of the conflicts between the US and China, in Ukraine, in the Middle East and so on, are actually a on the one hand a reflection of the

changing balance of power in the world and at the same time to a significant extent a reflection of American mischief. have gone arry. So the war in Ukraine, for example, is mainly an American-caused war because America decided that Ukraine belonged to our sphere of influence and that we would put military bases in Ukraine. And the Russians said, "No, thank you. We don't want your military bases nearby." And essentially that debate went on for 15 years and it finally culminated in outright flagrant war between NATO and Russia until today. And similarly, the clash with China is

a reflection of the American attitude. China, you can't be doing that. We're the unrivaled power. You have no right to be so big and successful. you must have cheated in some way because we're the only ones that can do that. And that's a very deeply held American view. It's false. China got where it is today through very hard work, through long hours, through a remarkable rise of educational attainment in a 40-year period, through heavy investments, excuse me, and through exporting successfully to the rest of the world. and 10 years ago investing in a major technological

initiative called made in China 2025 where the Chinese planning apparatus which is very profound and substantial identified 10 leading clusters of technologies that China needed to build whether it was from semiconductors or digital or advanced agriculture or advanced avionics or uh u renewable energy 10 were listed and they did it over the next 10 years and this is something that uh no other part of the world has so successfully accomplished. Well, we're in a multipolar world and this week is a very interesting week in that regard. Maybe it won't be so interesting, but I have

some glimmer of hope that it could be very interesting because Donald Trump, as strange and unstable, sometimes vulgar and nasty as he is, wants to end the war in Ukraine. Uh, which is and he truly wants to end it. And it's the right thing to do. And it's something that the US could not uh realize was the right thing to do up until Trump because the deep state direction was American dominance and Trump realizes that this wasn't working very well. So maybe in two days uh President Putin and uh President Trump and President Silinski will

meet in Istanbul. Maybe it's all a flurry of headlines and all my hopes will vanish within 48 hours. But maybe they'll meet and maybe if they don't meet on Thursday as they say maybe they'll meet next Monday or next but maybe that war will come to an end. Today, President Trump is in the Middle East. Again, call me naive and I am and uh idealistic and I am and hopeful and I am. But I'm hoping, it's a little far-fetched, but I'm hoping that this week, President Trump will say there needs to be a state of

Palestine because for 50 years, the US approaches, we determine the Middle East. Israel is our agent. We don't have to listen to any other country. And this has led to the bloodbath that's underway in Gaza and in the West Bank and in Lebanon and in Syria where the US and Israel conspired to create massive harm and maybe that too could end. Yesterday was an interesting day when the United States and China reached a an agreement to end the US trade war on China so-called. uh or to suspend it for 90 days. What that was was

a demonstration that the United States doesn't have a chance in a trade war with China. So the US put on tariffs and uh it became clear over a period of about 45 days this was absurd, doomed to fail, a selfharm, an own goal and the US backed down yesterday. So that's another sign uh that maybe maybe something better can happen. And there are also negotiations with Iran and the United States underway. This is also quite interesting. The US and Iran negotiated in 2016 when President Obama was in office to end Iran's nuclear program and in

exchange reintegrate Iran into the world economy by ending the sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe. When Trump came into office in his first term, one of his first acts under the guidance of Israel was to reject those negotiations. And Trump this time is actually negotiating despite the call by the Israeli government to bomb Iran rather than to negotiate with Iran. So this is also a sign of realism if it comes to fruition. So again being hopelessly naive and and idealistic. We could actually be in a week where something good happens of significance. Uh

not only on one front but on many fronts. I don't know. But all of those crises that I talked about are a reflection of the rebalancing of power. And all of the conflicts are essentially like continental plates shifting against each other because one plate, the American plate, uh suddenly hit the plates of other great powers uh and leads to volcanoes, to mountain ranges, and to earthquakes. uh what we are essentially observing right now as we speak. So let me turn to Brazil in all of this. What does all of this uh add up to? We

need to learn to live in a multipar world. The difference of our world today and previous periods of multipolarity is that this time there are arms in all of the major power regions. Nuclear arms that if we fail to do right can destroy the world. And I think that this is the most significant practical and moral reality of our time. We stand with a profound challenge of how to govern our global humanity. knowing that the kinds of accidents or failures of the past will not just be historical failures of tragic wars but could be the

end of humanity itself. So we had better get this right in ways that we have not in the past. Can a multi-olar world actually be a world main question in my mind and thinkers differ about this again. Emanuel Kant who I mentioned wrote in 1795 a uh a global constitution for a world he called a perpetual peace. That's the name of the essay in 1795. It was kind of a sketch of the United Nations actually about a century and a half about a centur. Yeah. uh that was a kind of sketch of a multipolar peaceful

world about a century and a half ahead of the United Nations. So our question is can we have such a world today and we need that world not only to save ourselves from the potential of self annihilation but also so that we can cooperate on the protection of nature on which our survival also depends. Pope Francis had two great encyclicals 10 years ago. Latoi is a wonderful wonderful encyclical on humanity and nature and it is a theological and philosophical and biological and uh uh and ethical reflection on stewardship and on the need for human beings

to be stewards not doineers of the earth. and how we need to rethink economic life in order for that to happen. Uh, and Pope Francis talked about ending the throwaway economy where we throw away our wastes and we throw away our poor and we throw away anything we don't want to pay attention to and we fail to pay attention to all that really matters. Four years after that, his second great encyclical is Futelli Tuti. And this one should be seen exactly alongside Loato Ci. It's part of an overall vision and fertility is all about living

together. Uh it's all about dialogue and encounter. Uh it starts with the story of Francis of Aizi going from Italy to the battlefield in Dalmata in the fifth crusade in 1219 to see the Sultan Al Camille al Malik uh to try to negotiate a peace between the Christians and the Muslims. St. Francis didn't succeed. Uh, remarkably he uh went away with his life because the Sultan gave him safe passage out of the battlefield uh uh controlled on the Muslim side. Uh and the story came down to us 700 years as encounter. And that encyclical incidentally

was dedicated by Pope Francis to the Grand Imam of Alakar which is certainly the first time in the church's history that a pope dedicated the an encyclical to a Islamic leader. Uh and that shows of course Pope Francis's approach. So these are the real essence of the challenge. So I want to come back to Puket Rio in this because what we need to do to succeed. What we need to do is first to have a sound understanding a scientific understanding of the realities of our world today. We have to understand the ecological challenges. We have

to understand the biological realities. We have to understand the earth systems dynamics. We have to understand the fact that the Amazon itself is at a tipping point as Carlos Nobury and his colleagues have shown over many decades. So we have to understand the science. Second, we have to understand the technical knowhow to respond to those challenges. So the Greeks called the science the episteem and they call techne the uh body of knowledge of engineering, public health and other practical disciplines that can address the solutions that we need. But we also vitally need the third area

of knowledge which the Greeks of course called etica. Uh we need the ethical guidance. Today we would call it the Catholic social teachings as a crucial guide for the world so that we know how to behave uh how to live how to address the common good. That's the challenge and Pukar Rio, you're in the lead. Thank you very much. [Applause] would like to thank Professor Jeffrey Saxs for being available to be with us here today. Now, we are going to start a round of Q&A that have been written by three students at our university. We

would like to invite to join us Julia Ferrera. She is a social service student. She's going to ask a question. Good morning. As it's been mentioned, I am a social science student. second year. My question to Professor Jeffrey is the role of universities and young people. What advice would you give to Brazilian young people that would like to work with sustainable development in a scenario of crisis, economic and political crisis? Thank you very much. Um, universities are are wonderful places for two main reasons. One, they bring together the knowledge that we need and advance the

knowledge that we need. And second, they bring together the generations uh gray hairs like me uh and uh young people who are going to be leading uh this effort for many many years and and decades to come. And so universities have multiple responsibilities in this area. One of course is the pedagogical responsibility and that requires new kinds of pedagogy for the challenges we face. Of course the the traditional disciplines if I can call it that first of all weren't so traditional maybe a hundred years ago because we keep inventing basic disciplines. There was no such

thing as biochemistry more than a hundred years ago or many other fields of science. But also in addition to those we need integrative education. We need transdisiplinary knowledge. We need the capacity to link together like Pope Francis did in Lato Sea. the earth's physical systems, the earth's engineered systems, the economic and political systems, the ethical uh systems. So we need to help at least some of our uh uh educational programs to make the links across the different fields of knowledge so that they can address these uh these challenges. The research component is obvious. We're in

a we're in a new world and we have a new set of problems. The issues that we're trying to understand about climate tipping points or the fragility of the Amazon or strategies for bioeconomy were not even questions asked 30 years ago. Uh and there's so much that's not known about them that they are absolutely urgent areas for advance. But I would say that the third area that universities need to pioneer is ways to empower young people to be able to become effective in this challenge. Because sustainable development for me is both a intellectual approach, a

system of systems approach, but it's also a very practical problem-solving challenge. The world has not figured out how to address climate change even though we're in COP 30 after all. And the climate convention, the UNFC climate convention was signed 33 years ago and it's still not properly in effect. So we don't have the practical means of implementation of what we aim to do yet and we need to invent new ways to actually solve these problems because these are not old package problems. These are new challenges. Na national governments and there are now 193 UN member

states have never grappled with a problem so technically complex as converting the world energy system to a zerocarbon energy system. That's not a simple matter. and they've never grappled at a global level with a coordinated effort of this kind and they're not doing a good job by the way. Uh our governments are not doing a good job. So that's where I would like to see universities empower new kinds of problem solving and especially a leadership generation of young people that are inspired and with the capability to address complex challenges. That means learning many things not

only the technical knowledge but problem solving skills which are not simple. My wife is a medical doctor. Uh her first training of course as a medical doctor was was physiology and chemistry uh and then pathology and all of the scientific specialties. But then she had to learn how to diagnose a patient. And that's a quite different matter and that which I learned and admired of differential diagnosis. Okay, your child has a fever. Let's figure out what's going on here is a highly complex art. And like an AI system, although this is a hi system, a

human intelligence system, you have to train it with reinforcement learning repeatedly. You have to see hundreds of patients and your neurons then change so that you are able to recognize one kind of fever over another kind of fever. That's problem solving in a very practical way and it's a skill. And in differential diagnosis, you have to diagnose the mother. Do they know what to do? Would they be able to give the the the uh medicines on time? Do they understand? Is there something in the family dynamics I need to understand to save the child? So,

it's a complex skill, very contextual, very uh uh specifically based. That's problem solving that needs to be instilled. And to my mind, what this means for pedagogy is there should be a lot of problembased pedagogy, a lot of uh practicums, a a lot of field-based learning. Go sol you don't have to solve a big problem. Maybe it's get solar panels installed in uh in a neighborhood. Uh maybe it is to reduce the emissions on the campus. Maybe it is some other problem. But it's a practical problem. And I found in 40 years of working on

practical problems, there is no way to understand a practical problem on a theoretical level alone. It's impossible. Theory is essential. But the day you start applying the theory, you realize the first constraints that you never even thought about and are not in that paper you just read and have nothing to do with what you think. And then you're puzzled and then you start scratching your head. My god, I've got to figure this out or I'm going to fail my test or whatever it is. You have to start scrambling to figure out what's really going on

here. How can I maneuver? How can I be a diplomat? How can I bring this streperous mayor together with with the this community? So that's the kind of skills that I would like to see emphasized in educational programs around sustainable development. And I think it's very thrilling, very empowering and extremely [Applause] important. Well, okay. Now I'm going to invite other two students Batrice Almeida a student of biology and Agatha Bahos from social services. Hello. Good morning. Good morning Jeffrey. First of all, thank you so much for being here for your class and for making yourself

available to answer our questions. My question is about the multipolar world sustainable development and the role of our country in this scenario especially regarding Amazonian Nick questions. How do you believe uh Brazil should position itself in this multi-olar world to promote the uh sustainable development agenda promoting soft south development and protecting the Amazon and our amazing biodiversity as you mentioned the Amazon is it's better to have it uh standing than down cutting being cut down so how can we avoid the deforestation of the Amazon Hello, I'm Agatha. It's a pleasure to meet you. My question

is based on how we can relate sustainability with inequality. You relate sustainability to the reduction of inequalities. In the case of Brazil, how can we fight the concentration of wealth and still promote lowcarbon emission economies and a fair transition towards sustainable development in our country? With very easy questions. Uh so thank you uh thank you very much. Um, Brazil's role goes from the local to the national to the regional to the global as do all of the problems that we're facing. But because Brazil is one of the world's leading countries and one of the largest

countries and home to the greatest biodiversity in the world and with the substantial proportion of the Amazon itself in Brazil, Brazil's responsibilities and capacities are very very high and very important. Of course, Brazil itself needs a sustainable development strategy as does every nation. And uh a sustainable development strategy is not an easy thing to design for many many reasons. First, sustainable development itself means that you're combining economic, social, environmental, and geopolitical aims together. So, it's a complex agenda. It's not doing something simple. It's aiming for forming a society that meets a number of needs and

criteria in the social ethics, in the ecological, in the economic and in the geopolitical domains. And that requires the kind of range of knowledge and experience that I talked about. It requires governments to plan at longer term than they're used to planning because you need a perspective of 10 to 30 years as best you can look ahead to aim in the right ways to achieve some of these crucial transformations. These are long-term challenges, not something from day to day. So this is one major part. All of these problems also come wrapped up from the local

community to the state to the national government and Brazil is a federal system. Federal systems are the right kind of systems for large societies but they're not simple systems because responsibilities overlap are competed at different levels are shared. Revenues may be needed at the local level but they're collected at the national level. uh and so urban finance for example is a major issue almost everywhere in the world in order to achieve sustainable development. But even if one country by itself can orient its own internal policies in the right direction, it's never enough with the issues

we're talking about. Protecting the Amazon, by definition, is nine countries working together. That's not easy. Uh there are of course treaties across the Amazon and there are practical challenges, very different political orientations of governments, different levels of capacity, different levels of development and no transboundary systems of enforcement and so forth. So coordination among the Amazon states is crucial and difficult. Brazil needs as all of the neighbors coordination at the scale of South America as well. South America is a natural geography for connecting the zerocarbon power system. For example, Brazil will be a zerocarbon power economy,

but it will do so efficiently and effectively if it's linked with Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, the Andian countries, and so forth. And this is hard work. It's a lot of physical investment. It's a lot of political and institutional planning. It's market design. And it's very difficult to accomplish at a regional scale, but it's extremely important. Miraosur to my mind is not adequate to the challenges. Uh sometimes it barely functions, but it's also too small a unit uh because the Andian region is should be part of a South Americawide diplomacy. uh and it's not effectively right now.

This region is probably the least integrated politically of just about any major region in the world right now. Uh there is an African Union, there is an Arab League, there is a Eurasian Economic Union, there is ASEAN and so on. But there isn't an effective South American Union or Latin American Union. There is something called seac which barely exists for the community of Latin American and Caribbean states. OAS is a kind of American US uh u US thing which makes it ineffective for most of what needs to be done. Um and so this is really

a problem of coordination and cooperation as well. But Brazil obviously needs to take the lead in South America uh because there's no other country that comes close I mean remotely close to the scale uh and and the possibilities of leadership of of Brazil then Brazil basically represents this region globally. uh it represents this region in the bricks uh partly because Argentina absented itself uh which is too bad for Argentina also but the bricks is a very important grouping because it's about 46% of the world population and about 41% of the world economy and it is

the part of the world saying to the US look the unipolarity is over so we need a multi-olar world. So the bricks plays a very important role and I'm gratified that Brazil is hosting the BRICS meeting in a couple of months. It's very important actually this role and uh President Lula going to Russia and to China is very important for Brazil, very positive uh and the kind of Brazilian diplomacy very much needed. So my basic answer to the question is it's complicated because it's lots of different roles at lots of different levels and it's a

major major diplomatic uh effort that needs to be made. Fortunately, Brazil also has a remarkable diplomatic core. Uh really a an extraordinarily professional diplomatic core with a global reach. And this is very important that it be deployed for these purposes. Brazil needs to have friends. Don't you don't need an enemy in Washington, but Washington is just one of many many parts of the world that are important for Brazil right now. And absolutely equally important for Brazil is Beijing, Moscow, uh Brussels, Addis Ababa for the African Union. All of them are important right now. And Brazil

by its history and its geography has a chance to be an important voice in all of those places. And so do uh use that opportunity effectively when it comes to the question of inequality. All of the Americas are highly unequal societies with the partial exception of Canada because of its distinctive uh history. Now Canada and the others would be even more unequal but Canada and the United States largely decimated the indigenous populations. uh whereas in other places where the indigenous population survived maybe by dent of the mountain ranges and distance or uh different demographics. The

inequality also tends to be large because the European descent populations ruled the Americas for two centuries uh and uh created highly stratified societies. In the United States, we had a parttheid rule. We had slavery up until 1865 and then a parttheid rule for the next 125 years. That's a very that led to huge inequalities and Brazil has high inequalities and almost all of the Americas have high inequalities. Together with the high inequalities come many many other features. High levels of violence is also endemic to the Americas. This is an extraordinarily violent part of the world.

Homicide rates are out of control in that beautiful Caribbean where you go to for the beach. Uh it's got the highest homicide rates in the world. Uh absolutely extraordinary. It's gangs, it's drug trafficking, it's uh human trafficking, it's uh weapons everywhere. and really partly a reflection of this stratified society that was created through the history of the Americas. Highly unequal societies don't work as well as more equal societies. And by the way, Aristotle pointed that out 20 350 years ago. He said if you want to make government work effectively have a narrow inequality of income

and he was right about that. So the inequality is not only morally uh untenable but it's practically untenable as well. It leads to great difficulties in in social instability uh in violence and in other social ills. What are the ways out of inequality? By far the most important is education for all at equality level because the most important capital that anybody possesses is the human capital. And so ending the stratification of educational quality is the most important single act. It takes a generation at least. It's not easy to do because you learn also from the

home and if the home is more affluent then that's also an inequality of course. So intergenerational inequality is deeply entrenched but education is number one for sure. Second is a social welfare society and a social welfare ethic which includes not only education but access to nutrition to health care and so on. Brazil's been doing a very good job of this in the last 25 years with some ups and downs politically but basically the bulsa familia the uh essential package and so forth are important steps forward. Of course, to pay for all of that, you want

the economy to function as well. Uh, and uh, Brazil's economy could function better than it does. The functioning of the economy depends on technology, skills, uh, scientific advance, investments in leading sectors and so forth. And I think uh, there is important advance that can can be made. But I would say that education and the social welfare state are two absolutely essential elements. And then a third is the social ethics helping to understand why we all benefit from a more equal society and a more equal world. And that's a matter of ethics. It's a matter of

understanding what the common good is. It's a matter of training. I can't I'm trying for decades to get it through the heads of American leaders. China's advance is good for us, not bad for us. That's what needs to be understood that the advance of others is not your disadvantage, it's your benefit. And so that ethical framework I think is essential. [Applause] And to conclude, we are going to give the floor now to our recctor. To conclude this very important moment, I'd like to thank everybody who's here also the broadcasting services and uh in memoir of

our dear Pope Francis, our late Pope Francis who left us recently. But he left also tasks. One of the most important tasks is our commitment towards the climate crisis, the search for solutions. He left this metaphor, the common home, our planet. We should uh destroy walls, build bridges, he said. And in this respect also thanks to Pope Francis, we have a successor who is already bringing us so much hope. Pope Leo 14 has already expressed and shown signs of being aligned deeply aligned with Pope Francis. will be living the continuity of the pont pontificate of

Pope Francis. Pope Leo 14 is preparing this continuity in terms of actions, acts but also more concretely we will be expecting the encyclical. He is the name he chose is also important and the social teachings of the church with Leo the 13 when uh the church was positioning itself in face of the industrial revolution. Now we're living a new revolution. Artificial intelligence, the digital world, a new world. And certainly Leo 14 has given his contribution to and his contribution will be in this new revolution helping the church to be a light and uh for the

world an important light for the world. Not the only one though. That is why we make the university available. Pope Leo 14th knows that we had already been working with him. He was the president at the time. He was not is not just the president. He was chairing the commission for Latin America. So we had been working with him for a few months and the meeting that will occur here in a few weeks will be extraordinary. more than 200 leaders, more than 100 directors of universities of this uh network of universities for the common good.

It is a network of public universities. It's not just Catholic universities. It is public universities in the vast majority and confessional Catholic universities. There is a Jewish university, also evangelical and Protestant universities. So, we're getting together, uniting, joining continents. That's beautiful. universities from all the Americas over the last few months the US also came Georgetown was here San Diego they will be here because of the context the problematic context they're living right now threats to the American democracy so Rio will be the center joining the continent will be putting ourselves to the service of the

world our common home in an organized way. Pope Francis spoke also about organizing hope. If we do not organize hope, well, hope will be captured by all types of ideologies. We need to organize hope. We need to show the reasons for hope. That is why that is what we can do now. Thank you all. And special thanks to Jeffrey. We'll go and have lunch in a while, Jeffrey. and continue our talks. I'll be welcoming him at the directorship to tell him about our direct. We have a meta project. The manta project is the project of

projects, a platform of projects. It's called Amazon Amazon. In other words, that is what it is. What is it? It is welcoming Jeffrey Sachs. It is organizing our hopes. It is book here taking a stance in the world in a very concrete way. We have projects, we have science. I see so many of our scientists here with us today. People working with energy issues, studying new possibilities. This university is a university of science. Those who thought it differently are wrong. Our research is not out of connection with the world. It is not uh research for

itself just to make money. It is some research to be shaped and guided by uh our principles and values. This is our alma matter. This is our alma matter. that which puts us and gives us soul and the our soul is that of the Pontipical University in the most beautiful uh sense. It is a community university. It is committed to the world and to our country. I wish that we are all very very happy. Long live Pokeo. Long live this meeting and long live us all. Thank you. for your presence and your dialogue we've shared

today. Uh this is your home. So thank you. You're welcome all the time. Thank you Briad. Before we leave the uh room, we would like to invite you for an official photo of the event.