The Earth Summit

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held from 3 June through 14 June in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. One hundred and fifty nations sent representatives, 1,400 non-governmental organizations were in attendance.

The major accomplishmentsof UNCED centered around the creation of United Nation’s organizations. The most important of these bodies is the Sustainable Development Commission that was given the task of furthering the work of creating sustainable development policies and procedures throughout the world.

The Summit also adopted the Rio Declaration that includes 27 principles. These principles are especially significant since they represent a series of difficult –to – reach compromises between industrialized and developing countries. Much of the developing world feels that the industrialized countries have used up the world’s environmental resources in the pursuit of development and now wish to protect what environment resources are remaining at the expense of the possibility of economically improving the lot of poor nations. These principles, then, provide a framework for the world’s diplomats in their efforts to improve both environmental and economic conditions around the world. The Rio principles included:

a state’s sovereign right to exploit its own resources in accordance with its own policies, without harming the environment elsewhere; the right to development; environmental protection as an integral part of development; sustainable development that requires reducing “unsustainable patterns of production and consumption” and that promotes “appropriate demographic policies”; access to information and citizen participation… and the polluter pays principles, including the internalization of costs and the use of economic instruments.

Outline

1. The Report by the United Nation’s Brundtland Commission.

1.1. Identification of acute matters facing the mankind.

1.2.

1.3. The definition of sustainable development.

1.4.

2. The Earth Summit.

2.1.

2.2. The principles outlined by the Earth Summit.

2. Match the terms with their definitions.

3. Summarize the context of the text.

Text 3

1. Read the text and focus on the following points:

· the definition of sustainable development

· the definition of sustainability

· three constituent parts of sustainable development and their concerns