Deputy Prime Minister Supachai, President Tienchai, Ms. Katie McGinty, chairperson of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. I think it is particularly appropriate that Chulalongkorn University's Environmental Research Institute has been chosen as the site of the network's Asian node. I am well aware of the leading role that Chulalongkorn University plays in the intellectual life of the country and the region. The great innovator and modernizer King Rama V is remembered by the name this great university bears. I believe that what we are witnessing today reflects the some kind of vision into the future that His Majesty King Rama V Championed in his own time.
Environmental concerns are a real priority for countries all over the world.
How we deal with them will have important implications for the economic and physical wellbeing of our children and our children's children. Vice President Al Gore, himself a committed environmentalist and author on the subject, speaks of the challenge ahead. Unfortunately, while governments have become skilled at articulating the problems, we have not developed a comparable skill, as yet, in developing and implementing sustainable solutions. This challenge is at the outer boundary of what is possible for a civilized civilization to successfully resolve. Yet we must rise to the challenge.