Earth Summit

  • The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, the Rio Summit, the Rio Conference, and the Earth Summit (Portuguese: ECO92), was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeirofrom 3 to 14 June 1992.
  • Earth Summit was created as a response for Member States to cooperate together internationally on development issues after the Cold War. 
  • In 2012, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development was also held in Rio, and is also commonly called Rio+20 or Rio Earth Summit 2012.

The Earth Summit resulted in the following documents:

  • Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
  • Agenda 21
  • Forest Principles

Moreover, important legally binding agreements (Rio Convention) were opened for signature:

  • Convention on Biological Diversity
  • Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
  • United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

In order to ensure compliance to the agreements at Rio (particularly the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21), delegates to the Earth Summit established the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). In 2013, the CSD was replaced by the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development that meets every year as part of the ECOSOC meetings, and every fourth year as part of the General Assembly meetings.

Critics point out that many of the agreements made in Rio have not been realized regarding such fundamental issues as fighting poverty and cleaning up the environment.

Green Cross International was founded to build upon the work of the Summit.

Leave a Reply