The action plan created during the 1972 Conference on the Human Environment and the 1982 World Charter for Nature (Earth Charter) provided the basis for 20 years of sustainable development activities. It was the Earth Summit (3–14 June 1992, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), however, which established an official global consensus on development and environmental cooperation. That consensus was represented in Agenda 21, adopted during the Summit.
Pragati Pascale, Chief of the Development Section in the Strategic Communications Division of the United Nations Department of Public Information, was working in 1992 as Associate Information Officer. She was able to get involved early on with communications for the Summit, which she describes as a visionary event. “It was the first UN conference that had such a large NGO and civil society component,” she relates. “That was key to its success in starting to get sustainable development into the popular awareness. The outcome document, Agenda 21, was a groundbreaking agreement—a blueprint for sustainable development negotiated over months, including ideas from experts brought together from many fields.”
Basic to Agenda 21 was the acknowledgement that protecting the environment required collaboration across boundaries. Agenda 21 was meant to reflect an international consensus to support and supplement national strategies and plans for sustainable development. It calls for all States to participate in improving, protecting and better managing ecosystems, and taking common responsibility for the future. As stated in the preamble to Agenda 21, “No nation can achieve this on its own. Together we can—in a global partnership for sustainable development.”
Setting the tone with the Rio Declaration
The Earth Summit produced 27 principles—the ‘Rio Declaration’—on new and equitable partnerships and development through cooperation among States, social sectors and individuals. They reflect human beings’ responsibility for sustainable development; the right of States to use their own resources for their environmental and development policies; and the need for State cooperation in poverty eradication and environmental protection. The idea is that States must act in a spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the integrity of the Earth’s ecosystem (see YUN 1992, pp. 670–72).
As Pragati explains, however, the Summit exposed some persistent global divides. “Whereas many developed country Governments and NGOs came in with a ‘let’s save the planet’ approach, it became clear that developing countries felt the North had an historic responsibility for many global environment and development problems, and they had serious concerns about not having constraints placed on their growth.” As a result, before Governments could agree on solutions to problems, they had to establish principles like “common but differentiated responsibilities.”
The New York Times wrote on 9 June 1992 that “Rio negotiators have come to grips with the problem of ‘sustainable development’, how to serve the economic needs of the world without damaging the biosphere and its vital resources and thereby compromising the well-being of future generations. Stockholm [1972] set in motion a chain of intellectual and political events that led directly to Rio, and together the two conferences constitute benchmarks in international environmentalism.”
As reported in the 1992 Yearbook of the United Nations (p. 674), the General Assembly, following the Earth Summit, took the next, consequential step of establishing the UN Commission on Sustainable Development to support and encourage action by Governments, business, industry and other non-governmental groups to work towards sustainable development.
Outlook on Rio+20
Pragati feels that Rio+20 may be able to recapture the original spirit of Rio 1992, particularly if it can make good on its outreach campaign slogan, “The Future We Want.” “I think many people will make their voices heard about the future they want,” she declares. “We have an exciting social media campaign; the hashtag #futurewewant has reached over 4 million people in less than two weeks, and it is taking off. The concept of innovative multi-partner initiatives has emerged as a way to generate concrete actions—and we expect a number of important commitments to be announced in Rio by Governments, businesses, UN agencies and other partners.”
