Source:
UNEP
The need to act globally against climate change "couldn't be more urgent," the United Nations Environment Programme warned. October 2007.
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From 26 August to 4 September 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (popularly known as “Rio +10”) was held in Johannesburg, South Africa. According to "Our Common Future: The Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development” (submitted in 1987 and known as the "Brundtland Report"), sustainable development is defined as “the development that satisfies present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". A sustainable way of life rests on three key areas: equitable economic growth; natural resource and environmental conservation; and social development.
By initiative of the United Nations, thousands of participants -including heads of State and Government authorities, national delegates and leaders of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), companies, and other groups concerned with sustainable development- gathered in Johannesburg. The goal was to focus world attention and direct actions on tackling such challenges as the enhancement of the quality of life for all human beings and the conservation of the natural resources of the planet.
This event commemorated the tenth anniversary of the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit (1992), where the international community adopted Agenda 21, an unprecedented global action plan to promote sustainable development. The Johannesburg Summit provided an opportunity to adopt specific measures and identify measurable targets towards the best implementation of Agenda 21.
During the Summit the third one on environmental issues organized by the United Nations-, a number of parallel activities were convened and held by independent organizations or groups. These same groups, for the most part, considered that the Summit’s outcome consisted of “merely rhetoric declarations”. The agreements reached are basically reduced to a Political Declaration and a Plan of Action, full of good intentions concerning the reduction of the number of people in the world without access to drinkable water, biodiversity and fishing resources, and with no objectives for promoting renewable energies. The documents approved contain no specific commitments, no new or additional funds, thus leading many analysts and participants to conclude that the Summit failed.
The most positive outcome was the announcement by several countries that they were ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, thus further isolating the United States -which was conspicuously absent from Johannesburg- as the leading opponent of international agreements on environmental issues.
World leaders met in Johannesburg in late August 2002 to review progress in implementing outputs of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro a decade earlier. They were also asked by the United Nations General Assembly "to reinvigorate global commitments to sustainable development". The 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), however, faced a seemingly impossible task.
In trying to make sense of the Johannesburg Summit, it is important first to acknowledge the diversity of activities and ways in which the significance of the event can be understood. Tariq Banuri has likened the 1992 Rio Summit experience to an evening at a multiplex cinema – you may have turned up at the same time as someone else and been in the same building, but seen very different films. And the Johannesburg multiplex was showing a lot more movies than its predecessor (pdf version).
From March 18-20, 2002, forty progressive activists assembled in Girona, Spain for a strategy session entitled: Rio+10 and Beyond: Strategies Against the Greenwash of Corporate Globalisation.
The Women's Centre is an initiative by the Women's Forum, convened by the Women's National Coalition and the Commission on Gender Equality in South Africa to create a space for women at the World Summit on Sustainable Development to meet, relax, plan, workshop, network and communicate.
APC and its member organizations are actively engaged with WSSD's issues, and promote the exchange of information on these topics within Civil Society.
CONGO will be responsible for a Commission on "Sustainable Development and the Millennium Development Goals" during the WSSD in Johannesburg. This Commission is part of the (provisional) official agenda for the Global Peoples' Forum.
A collaborative effort among civil society networks and nongovernmental issue caucuses aiming to improve communications and access to information on sustainable development issues. In particular, the initiative aims to improve communications among NGOs engaging in the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
This policy paper has been prepared by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Institute for Policy Studies to examine the potential role for export credit agencies in supporting sustainable energy technologies, principally in the field of renewable energy and energy efficiency.
The Sustainable Development Program fosters development that is ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially just. It seeks to strengthen international networking between women's and environmental groups; mobilize women's involvement in environmental and sustainable development decision-making; and advocate for gender mainstreaming in international forums like the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Tebtebba Foundation, the Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education, offers in its homepage informatin resources on the World Summit 2002, always from an indigenous perspective.
Official website of participants civil society organizations. The Global Forum is scheduled to run from 19 August to 4 September 2002, and is expected to host approximately 60 000 delegates from all over the world.
Civil Society preparation for the Johannesburg Summit in Africa, Latin America and Asia. A project of Danish support for increased participation of Southern NGOs in the Rio+10 Earth Summit. Available in english, spanish, french and portuguese.
The Indonesian People's Forum (IPF) is a coalition of 71 NGOs and CBOs that is facilitating Indonesian civil society participation in the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa, August 2002. IPF also encourages the implementation of Agenda 21 in the development policies of Indonesia.
Human activities are contributing to global climate change, especially through the emission of greenhouse gas (GHG). In order to address this environmental challenge, the international community is attempting to slow the emissions growth and to adapt to this new situation. PdF format.
Reports from six countries on progress towards sustainable development -- India, Japan, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and United States -- prepared by LEAD International and Panos London.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) have accompanied the follow-up to the Rio conference during the last ten years, and have participated in the preparatory process of the WSSD.
Jowsco, a not-for-profit company, has been mandated by the South African government to manage and coordinate the logistical activities relating the Johannesburg Summit. The site also offers useful information for everybody getting to Johannesburg, including accommodation, maps, transport, and tourist attractions.
Conceived for the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, Virtual Exhibition will not only display a multitude of sustainable development projects from all over the world, it will also bring summit proceedings to a global audience - in real time, via the internet. Screens at the summit will simulcast Virtual Exhibition for conference delegates.
Reaffirming the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, adopted at Stockholm on 16 June 1972, and seeking to build upon it…
The United Nations Environment Programme says that major threats to the planet such as climate change, the rate of extinction of species, and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the many that remain unresolved, and all of them put humanity at risk. The warning comes in UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook: environment for development (GEO-4), the latest in UNEP’s series of flagship reports, which assesses the current state of the global atmosphere, land, water and biodiversity, describes the changes since 1987, and identifies priorities for action. October 2007
As part of its special coverage of the Johannesburg Earth Summit, CorpWatch is running three excerpts from the new book, Earthsummit.biz: The Corporate Takeover of Sustainable Development written by CorpWatch staffers Kenny Bruno and Joshua Karliner.
Ten years after the Rio de Janeiro Conference on Environment and Development, the global environmental situation is unarguably worse. The main culprit: an unchecked capitalist mode of production that unceasingly transforms nature's bounty into commodities and incessantly creates new demands. By Walden Bello.
Emil Salim, chair of the global preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, lists the issues that developing countries will have to fight for at the Summit, and pleads with India to take the lead.
A group of global corporations are claiming that they have the answers to the planet's environment and development woes and suggest redefining "sustainable development" to focus on "profit, planet and people.
Have you ever noticed that most news from the NGO world mostly consists of summits and conferences on diverse global issues? Ever wondered why none of those conventions made a change in your country, in your community, in your home?
A report by TWN researcher Yin Shao Loong about the preparatory committee meeting for the WSSD that was held in Bali in June. As you know, these talks ended in deadlock, which has placed the Summit itself in "crisis mode."
"What are we going to do about the United States?" It's a blunt question for a UN diplomat, but it's on the minds, the lips, and in some cases the T-shirts, of many of the thousands of delegates who recently gathered in Bali for last preparatory meeting before the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to be held in Johannesburg in late August.
For almost two weeks, government delegates at the Fourth Preparatory Committee Meeting (Prep Com IV) for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) have been locked in a bitter battle to come up with a programme of action to take to Johannesburg. Reports from those observing the various negotiating sessions, and the state of the June 2 version of the Draft Plan of Implementation (also referred to as the Chairman’s text) reveal a hopeless deadlock along North-South, North-North and even South-South lines.
The last preparatory conference for the World Summit on Sustainable Development is now taking place in Bali, Indonesia and people around the world are increasingly concerned about the process and asking themselves questions about the relevance of the upcoming Johannesburg Summit to address the problems being faced by humanity.
Friends of the
Earth International (FoEI) is alarmed that governments seem to be
giving the wrong answers to the right questions and seem
hell-bent on making sustainable development subservient to the
WTO´s trade agenda.
The Memorandum is Heinrich Boell Foundation's contribution to the debate on both the desired outcomes of the Summit and the critical path for the sustainable development agenda in the next decade.
Mr Björn Stigson, President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, talks on how he feels that corporate social responsibility can catalyse the process of sustainable development. He stresses on the need to put business centre-stage at Johannesburg, if people really wants sustainable development in the real sense.
Industry and the environment - achievements, unfinished business and future challenges. Global launch of 22 Industry Reports prepared for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development.
The Green Oscars are given each year by the EarthSummit.biz Academy. These prestigious awards recognize the achievements of business and industry on sustainable development. It is a joint effort by Friends of the Earth International, CorpWatch, and groundWork.
The 13th Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-13), which will take place in New York, from 11 to 22 April 2005, will function as the “policy” session of the first-two year “implementation cycle,” with a focus on water, sanitation and human settlements. The session is expected to take policy decisions on practical measures and options to expedite implementation.
The Secretary General’s Report on Human Settlements represents a good first step in addressing the immense challenges of achieving sustainable development in this field. However, we are disappointed that key points in the statement delivered during CSD-12 by the Human Settlements Caucus are not reflected in the implementation agenda proposed by the General Secretary (herein called the "Draft Report"). Today, we reiterate a few of these missing themes and urge the Secretary to include them in his Summary Report on this week’s IPM session.
In order to implement gender as a key cross-cutting issue in the ten-year work plan of the CSD, all institutions and programs dealing with human settlements, water and sanitation should ensure that the involvement of women is a central factor in their policies, programs and budgets. In order to achieve this, they should use tools such as gender-disaggregated data, gender effect analysis and monitoring evaluation and systems that use gender indicators. March 2005.
This is a collection of news and reports from the 13th Comission on Sustainable Development that took place 11-22 April 2005, at UN Headquarters in New York.
The 13th session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-12) will be the second Review Session under the Commission's new Implementation Cycle, which was adopted at CSD-11. This is the new framework by which CSD-13 will be organized.(pdf version).
The website provides basic information about the Summit, news, calendar, details about the preparatory process, documents, participation of the civil society, media info, links and contact. Available in english, french, spanish, arabic, russian and chinese.
Stakeholder Forum is an international multi-stakeholder organisation - a network and forum on sustainable development, which has promoted outcomes from the first Earth Summit in 1992 and is now working on preparations for Earth Summit 2002. The site includes news, documents, links, and other resources.
While governments are confounded by globalisation, the fight for sustainable development is strong among peoples of the world. A new global campaign has been launched to stop the further corporate takeover of the planet, governments and the United Nations. Target: one million signatures for Johannesburg.
During the Johannesburg Summit 2002, this web site will facilitate a media platform for anyone wanting to share, find and use media material about the summit and wants to follow the news.
The Earth's population is soaring, but its resources are finite. Can we provide food, water, energy – and televisions, cars and holidays - for everyone, and leave future generations more than a planet-sized rubbish tip?
As the World Summit on Sustainable Development draws near, grassroots radio stations all across the African continent are bracing themselves for one of the largest community radio collaborations on the continent this year.
Fifteen years after the 1992 Earth Summit, Brazil is again playing host to representatives from around the world who are assessing the results of the actions that arose from that landmark conference. September 2007.
A new comprehensive report on the world's environment warns that the Earth is on the 'tipping point' of irreversible and possibly catastrophic changes. The planet can still be saved, but big policy changes are needed in the way nature is treated at every level of decision-making and new ways of cooperation between government, business and civil society. April 2005.
The Millennium + 5 Summit in September 2005 will review progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and take stock of the United Nations' capacity to act. It is important for leaders to remind the conclusion drawn at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, 1992): environmental and development policies are inextricably linked. This outcome and vision of the Rio Earth Summit must apply especially to any promising long-term strategy aimed at reducing poverty worldwide and narrowing the potentially explosive North-South divide. July 2005.
There is a direct and critical link between environmental degradation and rural poverty. This publication illustrates the tragic cycle between the over-exploitation of the environment; loss of cultural, political and economic self-determination; inequity; hunger; and poverty.(PDF document). July 2005.
In the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 an intergovernmental group was established to strengthen international environmental governance. However, there still remains much to be done in finding coherence between the environmental agreements and the development initiatives especially the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). (PDF document). September 2005.
