Sustainable development

Climate change

Sustainable development is a way of meeting the needs of present day generations without compromising the capacity of future generations to meet their needs, for instance by improving the quality of water and the environment, by minimizing the differences in the standard of living throughout the world, and by changing certain ways of living and consuming. UNESCO is helping to open up an avenue of sustainable development focused on human beings and based on respecting the rights of human and democratic principles, on solidarity, dignity, sharing and equality.

1987. The Brundtland Commission defined for the first time the concept of sustainable development before the United Nations.

1992. Government met in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) for the first Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development). The summit focused on the key question of how to reconcile the demands of the present day with expectations for the future. There were many debates and alarming observations concerning the current state of our planet and the likely evolution of living conditions. To set the problems aright, more than 150 countries worked on a common programme for the twenty first century, called the ‘Action 21 Programme’. Since then this programme has served as the basis for measuring the progress of the made in change in question.

Carbon

Sea Pathfinder

Warm Shallow Water

2002. From 26 August through  to 4 September in Johannesburg, South Africa, 129 States, including some 100 Chiefs if State and 60,000 delegates, met under the aegis* of the United Nations fir the World Summit on Sustainable Development, also called ‘Rio+10’.Particioants reported on the projects that are needed right now. Despite the reluctance of rich countries to commit to figures and dates, this second Earth Summit accomplished at least two objectives: it made a collective decision to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent within the next 10 years, and many States become aware of the urgency of remedying the ills of our planet. Healthy oceans and coastal regions are vital to sustainable development and poverty reduction. This is why, as mentioned earlier, the Action 21 Programme has an entire chapter devoted to the world’s oceans. Their well-being is essential to the survival of living things and to the cultural, social and economic prosperity of human population. To safeguard our survival or re-establish it we must learn how to manage the world’s oceans and coastlines, basing our decisions on scientific knowledge. This concerns all the countries of the world because:    

One country alone cannot study and monitor the world’s oceans on a continuous basis but it should at least be able to tackle the problems that touch its littoral. Subsequent to extensive urban growth in the 1970s, Brazilian cities such as Sao Paulo and its surrounding areas still have major air and water pollution problems. Their beaches are suffering today because the most polluting industries have been relocated on the littoral. All countries depend either directly or indirectly on the world’s oceans for survival and each must thus assume responsibility for its current condition. In addition, countries for which the economy and living conditions depend directly on the ocean must be provided with the means to solve problems on the local leave.