Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Although acknowledging that its analysis and recommendations were specifically
rooted in the 1980s,
Our Common Future
concluded its outline of sustainable
development by stating that its realization also required:
•
a political system that secures effective citizen participation in decision-
making;
•
an economic system that is able to generate surpluses and technical knowledge
on a self-reliant and sustained basis;
•
a social system that provides for solutions for the tensions arising from
disharmonious development;
•
a production system that respects the obligations to preserve the ecological
base for development;
•
a technological system that can search continuously for new solutions;
•
an international system that fosters sustainable patterns of trade and finance;
and
•
an administrative system that is flexible and has the capacity for self-
correction.
(WCED, 1987: 65)
The 1992 Rio Earth Summit and after
Five years later, in 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development,
the follow-up to Stockholm, was held in Rio de Janeiro. This meeting, known as
the Earth Summit, produced a number of agreements, including the Rio Declaration
on Environment and Development, the Framework Convention on Climate Change,
the Convention on Biological Diversity, a non-binding Statement on Forest Principles,
and the hugely cumbersome but nonetheless important agreement known as Agenda
21 (Grubb
et al
., 1993).
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the negotiations before and
after the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate mitigation are two important examples
of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Maintaining biological diversity
is key to maintaining the planet's overall health. Healthy ecosystems replenish natural
resources, offering all creatures the dynamic equilibrium upon which life depends.
If plant and animal species disappear, as they are doing at an unprecedented rate,
then monocultures will emerge that are highly susceptible to disease, global warming
and other damaging ecological change. Industrialized systems of agricultural produc-
tion and other commercial activities are creating monocultures, and both governments
and corporations officially recognize that such impacts must be mitigated and managed
- biological diversity must be conserved, resources must be used more sustainably
and the benefits from the planet's genetic resources shared (more) equitably. Following
Rio, many national strategies have been based on these broad international agreements,
although indigenous peoples and local communities have not always found their
inputs accepted when the actual implementation processes are scrutinized closely.
Trade and commercial imperatives have led to rather weak attachments to sustainable
development. Probably most depressing have been the limited, tortuous and hesitant
agreements around Kyoto - so far the only international, legally binding agreement
on climate change. The parties involved agreed to a 5.2 per cent reduction by 2012 in
greenhouse gas emissions relative to 1990 (8 per cent for the EU) and this was seen
