Five years have passed since the Earth Summit. Have we made any progress? Have we moved closer to the goal of sustainable development in the last five years? Is the world better off today than it was five years ago? A pessimist will say that the glass is half empty. As an optimist I prefer to say that the glass is half full. Let me count the main achievements", asserts Ambasador Tommy Koh of Singapore. The following is adapted from his article.
First, the Earth Summit has brought to a final resolution the age-old debate between economic development and protection of the environment. The new wisdom is that we want economic progress, but we also want to live in harmony with nature. To be sure, Governments have to make hard choices and there are trade-offs between the two objectives. But since the Earth Summit, it is no longer possible to talk about development without considering its impact on the environment or to talk about protecting the environment without considering its impact on sustainable development. Many countries have enacted legislation to provide for environmental impact assessment.
Second, the Earth Summit has empowered the environmental movement. Within national Governments, the ministries of environment and environmental protection agencies have become more important. The NGO (non-governmental organization) community has gained in stature and influence. Many countries have established national councils on sustainable development. The business community has rallied to the cause and established the Business Council on Sustainable Development. Business leaders have become aware that support for the environment is not inconsistent with profitability.
Third, the Framework Convention on Climate Change has come into force. The States Parties are engaged in the difficult process of negotiating a Protocol which would contain legally binding limits on the emission of greenhouse gases.
Fourth, the Convention on Biological Diversity has also come into force. States Parties are required to undertake inventories of their biological diversity. They are also required to publish Red Data Books containing their endangered species of flora and fauna. Although we continue to lose about three species of flora and fauna every day, the prospect is better today than five years ago that the world will arrest and reverse this trend.
Fifth, in response to the urgent need of Africa, a Convention to Combat Desertification has been negotiated and adopted. It will enter into force in December 1997. I hope the international community will back the Convention with the requisite political will and economic resources to make it work.
Our existence depends on how well we plan and implement policy through international cooperation. As our population continues to increase in the twenty-first century, it will provide us with the clue about how government makes sustainable plans about our future generations. Our present generation continues to consume more resources than what is presently in production, thus increasing the consumption level which has created water shortages, forest depletion for urbanization, more energy consumption, and food crisis, diseases and many more environmental problems. As the result of this, an evolution of transboundary effects are occurring. Our needs are changing to focus on environmental pollution and natural resource management, soil erosion,
...ment, United States of America. (2012). Managing sustainable development, 5-15. Washington, D.C: Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, United States of America.
WCED. World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our Common Future. New York: Oxford University Press.
Environmental issues expand into a global level, and it is not likely tackled by the country itself. A raising awareness on the environmental matter among nations, the cooperation between nations is essential. In the three articles, they have adopted different approaches to address the environmental issues. However, three of them view the problem not only in signal angle, either with inter – discipline or multi – level perspective. The authors of the three essays have indicated governments play an important role for managing those
This essay, as mentioned in the title, refers to the 3 major conferences held in the past two decades, organised by the United Nations. The main objective was to reduce emissions, save the environment from further damage, and increase sustainability
[WCED] World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our common future. New York: Oxford University Press. 444p.
The Kyoto protocol was enacted in order to address climate change by implementing emission reduction goals. Seeing as anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are a systemic world environmental problem, any individual act has a global effect and; therefore, international cooperation is necessary in order to address the climate change issue in any region. Furthermore, although developed countries have and are contributing the most to greenhouse gas emissions, many developing countries are feeling the negative affects purely due to their geographic location. Because of this cause and effect imbalance, global cooperation is necessary in order for any emission reduction efforts to have any impact.
Organizations around the world, aim to create a plan that will both benefit the economy and preserve the environment. One of the action taken was the Earth Summit of 1992, where more than 100 state leaders gathered to learn and adopt the “Agenda 21” that aims to integrated environmental issues in developing policies (Virola, De Perio & Angeles, 2000, p.1). This lead to the creation of a framework that will analyse both economic and environmental issues. The framework is known as Environmental and Natural Resources Accounting Framework or Environmental Accounting. It refers to environment-related data compiled into an accounting framework which aims to include the cost of using the environment in the traditional measurement of
This persuasive speech was given in Rio de Janeiro, and was a plea to the individuals in attendance at the United Nations Earth Summit to recognize how they are contaminating the environment with hopes that these audience members will revise their future proposals.
Quite often, these two sides appear to face each other with opposing prescriptions for future world development. The former argues for environmental protection and creation of a stable ecosystem; the latter supports jobs and increased development of Third World countries. Yet this false dichotomy between jobs and the environment need not exist. The key is promotion of worldwide sustainable development, or development that “meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations,” as defined by the Worl...
When the UNEP was set up in 1972, it was a comparatively independent player with a clearly defined work area. However as the international realm became more awe of the environmental issues there had been an increase in international environmental regimes that have extensive fragmented the work area of the UNEP. Each international environmental regime created its own norms and standard for each environmental issue, diluting the any standards that were created by the UNEP. When compared to national politics, the current international situation would come close to eliminating a national enviro...
Over the past year there has been over a million pounds of trash and debris filling up our landfills. This trash and debris have been found all over the beaches and found in the water killing ocean life and killing our reefs. This problem can cause our ocean food supply to plummet. It can also affect our economy ultimately by affecting our tourism. I am interested in this issue because, living in Hawaii and going to beach everyday I see beautiful beaches being trashed. So I would like to do anything I can to help the beaches and prevent this from happening.
Recycling was first thought of in 1776 during the war of Independence from England. Americans recycled scrap metals to help fight the war. But it wasn?t until 1895 when the first residential waste program in the U.S. was invented in New York. The chemistry behind recycling is the idea that 'everything circulates'. For instance, if you saved a box of cereal and put it into your recycling bin, that box of cereal can be made into a package of papers, or a newspaper, or a tissue box, and the possibilities are endless. Common household items that are recycled are newspapers and paper towels, aluminum, plastic, glass soft drink containers, steel cans, and plastic laundry detergent bottles.
The present paper focuses on the environmental, economic and social aspect of development along with keeping in mind the sustainable development and sustainable development goals. The impact of present development to the future generation will depict and will suggest the ways to sustainable economic development. The paper will also access the impact of global change, climate change on sustainable development.
Agenda 21, also referred to as Earth Summit, is an all-inclusive plan of action that is to be completed globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, governments, and major environmental groups in every area in which humans impact the environment. Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the Statement of principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests were all adopted by more than 178 governments at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development that was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil June 13-14, 1992.