Improving maternal mortality and ending preventable deaths in children are some of the health targets in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade/Flickr
Health has secured its place as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. But without clear mechanisms to report, finance or engage other sectors, could more end up as less?
The Sustainable Development Goals will aim to tackle pollution as well as poverty.
Alex Proimos/Wikimedia Commons
Next year will be critical in environmental diplomacy. World governments will be negotiating important global agreements in two areas that will have a major impact on our well-being in coming decades…
Giant fish made with plastic bottles emerge from the sands of Rio during the sustainability conference.
AAP/EPA/Antonio Lacerda
On the wall along the massive entrance hall to the Rio+20 Sustainable Development conference venue, there was a painting of an African landscape with the simple words “Keep the oil in the soil and the…
With its natural beauty, Rio provided the ideal backdrop for the earth summit.
Anna Magal
Rio provided the ideal backdrop for the Rio+20 “earth summit” – with the jungle at its backdoor, nestled among magnificent jagged mountaintops, bordered by kilometres of white sandy Atlantic beaches, and…
Rio+20 has backtracked on many intellectual property measures put in place by Agenda 21.
David Foote/AAP
The Rio+20 summit has raised a number of difficult questions about law and technology: what is the relationship between intellectual property and the environment? What role does intellectual property play…
More people live in cities than ever before. We can’t solve problems of sustainability and health without fixing them.
Bill Hertha
The secretary-general of the United Nations’ (first) Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Maurice Strong, famously declared that if our planet is to remain a hospitable and sustainable home for the human species…
Queue for iPad 2 in Sydney: green activists targeting companies and governments should realise that those ‘enemies’ reflect the values of the money and consumption-hungry populace.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
The recent news out of the RIO+20 summit is dire. No collective pre-agreement, no institutional change, no investment. The difference between RIO+20 and Kyoto was that at least Kyoto created an agreement…
Huge conferences with thousands of participants aren’t getting us anywhere.
Nic Bothma/EPA
Global sustainability conferences no longer fulfil a useful purpose, considering the existing dense institutional framework. We know what the problems are and need no further agenda setting. We need action…
Civil society hasn’t had nearly enough involvement in the Rio process.
Antonio Lacerda/EPA
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), could have brought us closer to a strengthened earth system governance. Closer towards a global, effective architecture for governance…
Big, ambitious strides aren’t the way to escape from this mess.
EPA/Zsolt Szigetvary
Yesterday, Nick Rowley looked at the history of sustainability agreements and why we’ve reached the impasse of Rio+20. Today he suggests a different approach. Back in November 2005, your perspective on…
The Rio Earth Summit approach to saving the planet is looking pretty old-fashioned.
United Nations Photos
Twenty years ago in a clamour of global public and media interest, representatives of all UN member states gathered in Rio de Janeiro to take part in the first Earth Summit. Later this week, the Rio+20…
We know where to head next to build more sustainable cities.
Anders Hoff
Over the weekend, local leaders from around the world gathered together in Belo Horizonte, an hour’s flight from Rio de Janeiro at the ICLEI World Congress. The aim was to galvanise their case for a decade…
Food comes from forests: surely that’s worth talking about?
CIFOR
Louis Verchot, Centre for International Forestry Research
In June 2012 around 40,000 participants are expected to attend one of the most important environmental gatherings in a generation - Rio+20. A draft agenda has been released, bearing the slogan “The Future…