Environmental Sciences Course Sustainable Development Lecture 7 – Week 4

Environmental Sciences Course

Sustainable Development

Lecture 7 – Week 4

Introduction

•Definitions•Earth Summits•The Concept Of SD•Principles Of SD

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1972: Stockholm Earth Summit

1992: Rio Earth Summit

2002: World Summit: Programme 2002

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Earth Summits


The 1972 Stockholm Earth Summit (UN conference on the Human Environment) produced an action plan which laid out clearly the educational, informational, social and cultural aspects of environmental issues.

• The three components of the Action Plan: ▫ the global environmental assessment programme

(Earthwatch), ▫ the environmental management activities, ▫ International measures to support the national and

international actions of assessment and management.

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Earth Summits


The Convention to Combat Desertification was held in 1977 to address land use practices and management of dry area ecosystems in an effort to desist degradation of arid, semi arid and sub-humid dry lands.

http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=97

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Earth Summits

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Stockholm in 1972

The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held at Stockholm in 1972

It was the first major international discussion of environmental issues. The meeting marked a polarization between the priorities of economic growth and environmental protection .

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Stockholm in 1972

This polarization has dominated the debate between rich and poor countries and between interest groups within countries for many years and - given the results of the Kyoto Climate Conference in December 1997 - is still not fully resolved.

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Earth Summits


In June 1992, more than 100 heads of state representing 179 national governments gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED),

The 1992 Rio Earth Summit was attended by 152 world leaders led to the signing of conventions on:• biological diversity• desertification,• a framework convention on climate change,• principles for sustainable forestry• Agenda 21.

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Earth Summits


Agenda 21 encourages the development of national strategies, plans, policies and processes capable of encouraging sustainable social and environmental development.

UNFCC: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, The mission of the Climate Change Convention is to stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and prevent potentially dangerous interruption with the climate system.

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Earth Summits

Rio produced two international agreements, two statements of principles and a major action agenda on world wide sustainable development.

•The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was created in December 1992 to ensure effective follow-up of Rio Earth Summit (UNCED); to monitor and report on implementation of the Earth Summit agreements at the local, national, regional and international levels.

•The The Declaration on Environment + Development was produced after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and outlined 27 agreed principles, with the goal of establishing a new and equitable global partnership through the creation of new levels of cooperation among states, key sectors of societies and people.

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Earth Summits

World Summit: Programme 2002

The World Summit on Sustainable Development, WSSD or Earth Summit 2002 took place in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 26 August to 4 September 2002. It was convened to discuss sustainable development by the United Nations.

The Johannesburg Declaration was the main outcome of the Summit; however, there were several other international agreements

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Earth Summits

World Summit: Programme 2002

It is an agreement to focus particularly on "the worldwide conditions that pose severe threats to the sustainable development of our people, which include: chronic hunger; malnutrition; foreign occupation; armed conflict; illicit drug problems; organized crime; corruption; natural disasters; illicit arms trafficking; trafficking in persons; terrorism; intolerance and incitement to racial, ethnic, religious and other hatreds; xenophobia; and endemic, communicable and chronic diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis."

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The term sustainability is now used by scientists, technicians, development Planners, politicians etc. in many different ways and meanings hence, it means different things to different people, but the most frequently quoted definition is from the report Our Common Future (also known as the Brundtland Report

What is the Sustainability?

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In 1950 K. William Kapp published a comprehensive analysis of all the important issues. and it was for the first Book about Sustainable Development

The concept of Sustainability

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Sustainability Development

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Health-and-Environment Cause-Effect Framework

Sustainable Development

EnvironmentHuman Health

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Consumption of renewable resources

State of environment

Sustainability

More than nature's ability to replenish

Environmental degradation

Not sustainable

Equal to nature's ability to replenish

Environmental equilibrium

Steady-state Sustainability

Less than nature's ability to replenish

Environmental renewal

Sustainable development

Environmental sustainability

PRINCIPLES OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

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1- Anticipating and preventing problems are better than trying to react and fix them after they occur.

2- Accounting must reflect all long-term environmental and economic costs, not just those of the current market.

3- The best decisions are those based on sound, accurate, and up-to-date information

PRINCIPLES OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

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4- We must live off the interest our environment provides and not destroy its capital base.

5- The quality of social and economic development must take precedence over quantity.

6- We must respect nature and the rights of future generations.

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The goal of environmental sustainability is to minimize environmental degradation, and to halt and reverse the processes they lead to.

Environmental sustainability is defined as the ability of the environment to continue to function properly indefinitely.

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Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of wildlife.