Twenty years after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, more than 100 heads of state gathered again in Rio on June 20–22, 2012 for the United Nations's "Rio+20" Conference on Sustainable Development, described as the largest-ever UN gathering of heads of state. The original 1992 conference produced noted global agreements on combating climate change and protecting biodiversity, as set forth in the Rio Declaration (principles setting out the basic standards of international environmental law), Agenda 21 (a roadmap aiming at achieving sustainable development), and the Forest Principles (a nonbinding good practice document on practice management). The Rio+20 Conference, however, produced far fewer tangible results.
The Brazilian negotiators of the Conference's final 283
consensus points document, "The Future We Want," removed
several major commitments from the earlier draft, including
specific targets for cutting carbon emissions, a $30 million fund
for sustainable activities in developing countries (an initiative
of the Group of 77+China, it was rejected because developing
countries were reluctant to accept a requirement that they also
contribute), and a European proposal to transform the United
Nations Environmental Programme into a full-fledged UN
environmental agency. Instead, the final document generally
contained vague language and few concrete commitments, leading to
criticism from many participating environmental groups and
nongovernmental organizations.
Among the outcomes of the Conference, however, was the launch of a
process to negotiate "Sustainable Development Goals,"
including economic, social, and environmental aspects of
sustainable development, to mirror and replace the UN's
"Millennium Development Goals" when they expire in 2015.
Rio+20's other accomplishments included voluntary pledges worth
$513 billion from governments, private companies, and multinational
agencies toward a series of "sustainable development
projects."
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