He spoke with The Earth Times at his office in Bern. Rio recognized a new way of tackling the development issue, the environment issue, the economic issue. But then the transformation of the mentality did not go as fast as I'd imagined. A number of political leaders seemed to have difficulty in really integrating the concept. And for the most active of them, they just thought about sustainable development as a new word for environmental action.
Environmental protection is only one aspect of sustainable development.
And I say this as an environmentalist myself. I think the fundamental problem is the political structure at the international level. It's very weak. Nations say they have national responsibility-and that you cannot interfere in their national responsibility. That was exactly the situation of Switzerland 150 years ago, when we created the modern Switzerland.