AN INTRODUCTION TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The concept of sustainable development has been evolving for more than 30 years. The 1972 United Nations (UN) Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden, contributed to this evolution by emphasizing that protection of the human environment is a crucial element in the development agenda. As a result of that conference, the United Nations Environment Programme Secretariat was established to promote international environmental cooperation. On the national front, countries throughout the world began to set up or improve their respective environmental institutions. Earlier, in 1970, the United States had already established the Environmental Protection Agency for a cleaner, healthier country.

In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by then Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland, issued a report entitled Our Common Future. Also known as the Brundtland Report, this landmark document suggests that creating separately existing environmental institutions is not enough because environmental issues are an integral part of all development policies. They are crucial to economic considerations and sector policies and should be integrated as part of energy decisions, social issues, and other aspects of development work.

The next milestone in the evolution of sustainable development occurred at the 1992 UN Conference of Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, also known as the Earth Summit. Its major contribution was to give equal importance to the environment and development. It endorsed Agenda 21, both a think piece and a program of action governing human activities with an impact on the environment. It also endorsed the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the Statement of Forest Principles.

Most importantly, the Earth Summit helped finalize the UN Climate Change Convention and the Biodiversity Convention, both signed by a great number of heads of state. The UN Climate Change Convention and the recently ratified Kyoto Protocol have made significant contributions to the evolution of sustainable development. Article 4 of the UN Climate Change Convention provides that “the Parties [to that Convention] have the right to, and should, promote development.” The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism is designed in part to assist participating developing countries “in achieving sustainable development.”

At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South Africa, heads of state and world leaders committed to implement Agenda 21. They also decided to carry out a plethora of partnerships to promote sustainable development. These endeavors in our common cause have made sustainable development a part of everybody’s vocabulary and agenda. Once of concern only to environmental specialists, sustainable development has become a concept that concerns everyone.

Source:

http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/54557/1/206.pdf