It would have to consider patterns of economic assistance, trade, technology transfers, demographics, poverty, consumption, and the rapid urbanization of the human community.” Furthermore, the negotiations needed to create the linkages between all these issues, enable governments to translate the recommendations into policy, and find ways to finance everything. It would have to address pollution, toxic chemicals, hazardous and radioactive waste, and other threats to human health. It would have to recommend ways to protect global systems, including the atmosphere and the oceans. 128-9) described the Earth Summit this way: “It would have to prepare recommendations for the conservation and prudent use of natural resources such as land, water, energy, forests, plants and animals. UNGA resolution 44/228, which established the conference, demonstrated there was hardly an issue that did not somehow fall into the rubric of sustainable development. The Rio agenda expanded well beyond Stockholm, reflecting both global environmental threats and the need to address the environment-development relationship (Engfeldt, 2009, p.141). The World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Commission-named after its Chair, Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland-was charged with addressing growing concern over the accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources and the consequences of that deterioration for economic and social development. The UNGA agreed to establish an independent commission to formulate a long-term agenda for action on the environment and development.

Eleven years later, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) recognized more had to be done. The first mega-conference where governments tackled the link between economic development and the deterioration of the environment was the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden. There is electricity in the air as thousands unite to solidify aspirations for a better world.īut have these conferences meaningfully advanced sustainable development? Businesses showcase sustainable technology. Thousands of people are networking and advocating for their cause. The corridors resemble a giant trade show or carnival. Inside the negotiating rooms, government delegates are hard at work on outcome documents addressing economic and social development and the environment. There is nothing like walking into a United Nations sustainable development conference.

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