Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of institutional development in Rio was the establishment of the Commission
on Sustainable Development (CSD).
The Rio Environment Conference in 1992 was historic in many ways.
For the fi rst time, the entire international community was able to agree on
principles to promote environmental protection and sustainable development;
it was also able to conclude an ambitious action plan, Agenda 21, to resolve
sustainable development problems. The conference adopted strategies to
implement international environmental agreements more effectively. The
1997 Earth Summit +5 follow-up meeting recognized that it was high time to
make the transition from negotiating agreements to actually implementing
them.
Challenges for solving environmental problems
Progress after the Rio conference has been disappointing. The follow-up confer-
ence to Rio was held in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002. It did achieve a
declaration and an agenda, but they were very modest compared with the accom-
plishments of Rio. It was no longer clear what 'sustainable development' was: it
had gradually become a term enveloping social, economic and environmental
sustainability, but in reality governments and communities still appeared to prior-
itize economic development above all else.
However, there is another way of looking at it. Although targets and meas-
ures for sustainable development were recorded in Rio, it proved diffi cult to
translate them into action. The follow-up conference in Johannesburg was
preceded by many preparatory meetings at which the obstacles to sustainable
development were discussed, such as poverty, population growth, decreasing
development aid, and increasing consumption in both industrial and develop-
ing countries. Increasing anti-terrorism policies and measures in the light of
the 'War on Terror' can also be seen as a threat to global cooperation and have
made their own contribution to environmental damage.
It is often diffi cult to move from words to actions in international environ-
mental law, despite acknowledgement that the functioning of the ecosystems
and the biosphere creates the basis for our entire human existence. This has
become evident in the lack of global cooperation to combat climate change -
without doubt the greatest contemporary environmental problem threatening
humankind. The UN climate treaty system has lurched from one crisis to
another and culminated in the failure of the Copenhagen 2009 Climate
Change Conference. The objective for Copenhagen was for powerful limita-
tions on greenhouse gas emissions to fi nally be agreed, but the only outcome
was the legally non-binding Copenhagen Accord. In 2011, the Durban
Climate Change Conference revived hopes of more effective measures,
although the Durban decisions, too, postponed the implementation of the
necessary actions. The twenty-fi rst century has seen more practical action: the
focus has fi nally begun to move from negotiating international environmental
agreements to implementing and applying them.
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