For two weeks in June 1992, Rio de Janeiro Brazil, the United Nations focused the world's attention on the global environmental crisis. The result of years of planning, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Earth Summit, brought together the largest gathering of world leaders in history to discuss how to save and preserve the global environment.
The first Earth Summit was held in Stockholm in 1972. Many of the problems that came to pass were foreseen. In 1987, a special World Commission on Environment and Development was created by the UN to study environmental problems more closely. It published its findings in a report called Our Common Future. This exhaustive study laid the groundwork for the 1992 Earth Summit. It also introduced the concept of sustainable development, one of the underlying themes of the Rio Earth Summit.
The Earth Summit fueled controversies. The United States refused to sign an agreement that would decrease ozone emissions to rapidly fearing industrial backlash. Throughout the conference there was conflict between the industrialized northern hemisphere nations (group of 7) and the less developed nations, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere (group of 77). Most of the world's pollution is generated by the industrial countries while those same countries seek to limit the industrial development of poorer nations fearing ever worsening pollution. The solution to this double standard remained elusive. Conflicts resulting from development were also apparent from the outcrys of indigenous peoples whose habitats and ways of life are being rapidly destroyed. The issue of population control as a major factor in environmental decay was mostly bypassed for fear of inflaming religious debates not on the agenda.
Critics of the Summit noted that little concrete action resulted from the conference. Proponents emphasize that the conference put environmental issues solidly on the global agenda. Environmental problems such as ozone depletion, deforestation, desertifcation, ocean pollution, extinction and many more, know no borders and can only be solved by international cooperation.
