1962 Rachel Carson publishes "Silent Spring"'

1
History of Sustainable Development

• 1962 - Rachel Carson publishes "Silent Spring".
• This book brought together research on
  toxicology, ecology and epidemology to suggest
  that agricultural pesticides were building to
  catastrophic levels.
• This was linked to damage to animal species and
  to human health.
• It shattered the assumption that the environment
  had an infinite capacity to absorb pollutants.

1968 - The Club of Rome, is established by 36
European economists and scientists. Its goal is
to pursue a holistic understanding of the 'world
problematique'. It commissions a study on global
proportions to model and analyse the dynamic
interactions between industrial production,
population, environmental damage, food
consumption and natural resource usage.
1969 - Friends of the Earth forms as a non-profit
organization dedicated to protecting the planet
from environmental degradation preserving
biological, cultural, and ethnic diversity and
empowering citizens to have an influential voice
in decisions affecting the quality of their
environment -- and their lives. 1971 -
Greenpeace starts up in Canada and launches an
aggressive agenda to stop environmental damage
through civil protests and non-violent
interference.
2
History of Sustainable Development

• 1971 International Institute for Environment and
  Development (IIED) is established in Britain with
  a mandate to seek ways to make economic progress
  without destroying the environmental resource
  base.

• 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human
  Environment, Stockholm. Only one Earth - led to
  the development of The United Nations Environment
  programme (UNEP)

• 1972 Club of Rome publishes "Limits to Growth"
  (Meadows et.al) report
• Best seller in several languages.
• It described the use of a computer model World 3
  - to study the implications of continuing
  exponential growth in five interconnected trends
  of global concern industrialisation, population,
  growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of
  non-renewable resources and ecological damage.
• The report adopts a pessimistic view of
  development, warning of severe resource shortages
  if development were to maintain its current
  momentum.
• Extremely controversial - Northern countries
  criticising it for not including technological
  solutions and Southern countries criticising it
  because because it advocates abandonment of
  economic development.

3
History of Sustainable Development

• 1974 Rowland and Molina release seminal work on
  CFCs in Nature magazine.
• They calculated that if human use of CFC gases
  was to continue at an unaltered rate the ozone
  layer would be depleted by many percent after
  some decades.

• 1983 World Commission on Environment and
  Development forms. The commission works for 3
  years to weave together a report on social,
  economic, cultural, and environmental issues.

• 1984 Worldwatch Institute publishes its first
  State of the World Report.
• The report monitors changes in the global
  resource base, focusing particularly on how
  changes there affect the economy.
• It concludes that "we are living beyond our
  means, largely by borrowing against the future."

• 1985 Antarctic ozone hole discovered by British
  and American scientists.

• 1987 World Commission on Environment and
  Development publish - Our Common Future (The
  Bruntland Report) in response to the request
  from the UN general assembly to propose long-term
  environmental strategies for achieving
  sustainable development by the year 2000.

4
History of Sustainable Development

• 1987 Montreal Protocol focused on the depletion
  of the stratospheric ozone layer and eliminating
  substances that cause this (HCFCs).
• Has since been strengthened twice - London and
  Copenhagen.
• Production of CFCs in North stopped by 1996,
  countries in the South (China and India) to end
  production by 2006.

• 1988 Inter-Governmental panel on Climate Change
• Resulted in the framework convention on climate
  change signed by 153 countries the then EU,
  dealing with the threat of global warming
• Thought lacked firm agreements on targets, did
  aim to stabilise 1990 levels of CO2 and other
  greenhouse gases

• 1992 Meadows, D. B., Meadows, D. L. and Randers,
  J., Beyond the Limits, London Earthscan.
• Using a computer model to map patterns of growth,
  the report concluded that environmental collapse
  was inevitable.
• 'If the present growth trends on world
  population, industrialisation, pollution, food
  production and resource depletion remain
  unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet
  will be reached some time within the next 100
  years'.

5
History of Sustainable Development

• 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and
  Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro,
  Brazil The Earth Summit. 179 countries
  participated in this conference working towards
  reconciling the impact of human socio-economic
  activities on the environment. Outcomes
• Convention on biological diversity
• Framework convention on climatic change
• Principles of forest management
• Agenda 21
• The Rio declaration on environment and
  development

• 1994 Law of the Sea national sovereignty of
  off-shore waters and the national responsibility
  for the ecosystems within these waters (re.
  dumping waste, fish stocks etc.)

• 1997 Kyoto Protocol Worlds Governments met in
  Japan to negotiate a treaty to start dealing
  seriously with climate change to reduce
  emissions of serious greenhouse gases CO2, CH4,
  NO, 3 types of fluorinated gases.

6
History of Sustainable Development

• 1997 - Earth Summit5 - A five year review of
  Earth Summit progress was made by the United
  Nations General Assembly.
• The final document adopted by delegates from over
  165 countries -- while taking small steps forward
  on a number of issues, including preventing
  climate change, forest loss and freshwater
  scarcity - disappointed many in that it contained
  few new concrete commitments on action needed.

• 2001 Climate Summit, Bonn 178 countries
  developed a framework of how to implement the
  1997 Kyoto Protocol

• 2002 - Earth Summit 2002, Johannesburg, South
  Africa. Rio10 - World Summit on Sustainable
  Development -people, planet, prosperity,