15-11-2012, 05:55 PM
Cover Story: UN Conference on Sustainable Development: Saving Earth
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Conference on Sustainable Development, also called ‘Rio+20’, was organised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from June 20 to 22 with world leaders from 192 countries agreeing that eradicating poverty should be given the highest priority, overriding all other concerns.
Member States renewed their commitments to ensuring an “economically, socially and environmentally sustainable future for our planet and for present and future generations”, as the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development — Rio+20 — closed on June 22.
A set of time-bound targets to end poverty and hunger while preserving the environment — to be known as the Sustainable Development Goals — was placed on the agenda of the General Assembly when the Conference adopted the outcome document titled “The Future We Want” in the final plenary of the three-day Conference.
Rio+20 built on the ground-breaking United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the “Earth Summit”) of 1992, which adopted Agenda 21 and the Rio Principles, and resulted in the conventions on biodiversity, desertification and climate change, as well as other bases of international efforts to effect integrated, sustainable development.
Affirming that poverty eradication was the greatest and most urgent challenge facing the world today, with more than 1 billion people living in extreme want, the document advocates a transition to a “green economy” and outlines a stronger role for women, non-governmental organizations, small-scale food producers, the private sector and the academic, scientific and technological community.
Among other proposals, it recommends the creation of a high-level standing forum on sustainable development to replace the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, and the strengthening of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The wide-ranging text, containing nearly 300 paragraphs, stresses that the Sustainable Development Goals will build on the Millennium Development Goals, the framework for slashing extreme poverty and other global ills in the period 2000 2015.
Welcoming the document’s adoption as well as the Conference’s extensive outreach to civil society and the private sector, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that the text provided a firm foundation for multidimensional well-being. “It is now our responsibility to build on it,” he stressed. “The work starts now.” Also urging follow-up action, Conference Secretary-General Sha Zukang expressed confidence that the outcome document “will provide an enduring legacy for this historic Rio+20 Conference”.
General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, also the Conference President, seconded those calls to action, with the latter hailing the mobilization and inclusion of civil society as major players in implementation.