Courtesy: Neva Frecheville, WWF UK
This June, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is playing host to the world again when the UN rolls into town. Every country will be there for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development – informally known as Rio+20. If you don’t know what it’s about, let me bring you up to speed…
‘Sustainable development’ is a phrase you’ll be hearing a lot in coming weeks, and it’s a vast and complex subject. But from our perspective it essentially means achieving a world where everyone shares the same rights to a healthy, living planet. (WWF’s goal has always been a world where people and nature thrive.)
The first Rio ‘Earth Summit’ took place back in 1992, and was pretty groundbreaking. A high level of political will at the time, generated by a huge mobilisation of people around the world, meant there was a pretty strong incentive for politicians, heads of state and decision-makers to take some brave and ambitious steps.
Among other things, they signed off the Rio Declaration (a set of 27 principles on environment and development) and Agenda 21 (a weighty tome that set the direction for sustainable development in the 21st century at local, national and international levels). And they established three new bodies to tackle the most pressing challenges of our time: the UNFCCC on climate change, UNCBD on biodiversity loss, and UNCCD to combat desertification.
So, 20 years on from that first Rio summit, where are we now?
Read more: WWF UK blog >>
La entrada Neva Frecheville: Rio+20 and how it might develop aparece primero en TckTckTck.