The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), also known as the Rio Earth Summit or Rio+20, in Brazil on 20-22 June 2012 will mark the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).
The Summit represents another milestone in ongoing international efforts to accelerate progress towards achieving sustainable development globally and aims to secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, assess the progress to date and address new and emerging challenges.
The Conference will focus on two themes:
- Green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication
- Institutional framework for sustainable development
And it has the following overall objectives:
- Securing political commitment to sustainable development
- Assessing progress towards internationally agreed commitments
- New and emerging challenges
Contributing to the Rio Earth Summit process
At its Second Preparatory Meeting in March 2011, the Preparatory to the conference invited all member States, relevant United Nations system organizations, and relevant stakeholders to provide inputs and contributions to the Secretariat in writing by 1 November 2011, for inclusion in a compilation text to be presented at the second Intersessional Meeting on 15-16 December 2011. The compilation document will form the basis of the negotiating text for the Rio+20 preparatory meetings, held between January and May 2012.
The Global Transition has contributed to this process by contributing to the green economy element of the Stakeholder Forum submission for inclusion in the compilation document. The Global Transition submission represents a synthesis of the principles and policy recommendations that emerged from the Challenge Papers and the dialogue session that took place in October 2011.