So how did Local Agenda 21 come about?
In 1987, the Brundtland Commission produced a report entitled Our Common Future. Five years later, in 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) brought 179 heads of governments together in Rio de Janeiro. It focused world attention on critical issues of sustainability and natural resources, and mapped out a plan of action for future global partnership to achieve concrete goals.
Agenda 21 was one of five documents produced:
- the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
- a statement of principles to guide sustainable management of forests
- United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
- The Convention on Biological Diversity
- Agenda 21
Agenda 21 is the plan to implement the agreements of Rio. It guides business and government policies into the 21st century. It identifies population, consumption and technology as the primary driving forces of environmental change and proposes what needs to be done to reduce wasteful and inefficient consumption patterns in some parts of the world while carefully managing natural resources.
All the world leaders attending the conference signed the declaration undertaking to achieve worldwide sustainable development. This is the declaration underlying Agenda 21: the action programme for the coming century.
Agenda 21 explains that population, consumption and
technology are the primary driving forces of
environmental change. It lays out what needs to be
done to reduce wasteful and inefficient consumption
patterns in some parts of the world while encouraging
increased but sustainable development in others. It
offers policies and programmes to achieve a sustainable
balance between consumption, population and the
Earth’s life-supporting capacity. It describes some of
technologies and techniques that need to be developed
to provide for human needs while carefully managing
natural resources.
Agenda 21 provides options for combating degradation
of the land, air and water, conserving forests and the
diversity of species of life. It deals with poverty and
excessive consumption, health and education, cities and
farmers. There are roles for everyone: governments,
business people, trade unions, scientists, teachers,
indigenous people, women, youth and children. Agenda
21 does not shun business. It says that sustainable
development is the way to reverse both poverty and
environmental destruction.
Accounting systems that measure the wealth
of nations also need to count the full value of natural
resources and the full cost of environmental
degradation. The polluter should, in principle, bear the
costs of pollution. To reduce the risk of causing
damage, environmental assessment should be carried
out before starting projects that carry the risk of
adverse impacts. Governments should reduce or
eliminate subsidies that are not consistent with
sustainable development.
A major theme of Agenda 21 is the need to eradicate
poverty by giving poor people more access to the
resources they need to live sustainably. By adopting
Agenda 21, industrialized countries recognized that they
have a greater role in cleaning up the environment than
poor nations, who produce relatively less pollution. The
richer nations also promised more funding to help other
nations develop in ways that have lower environmental
impacts. Beyond funding, nations need help in building
the expertise— the capacity— to plan and carry out
sustainable development decisions. This will require the
transfer of information and skills.
Agenda 21 calls on governments to adopt national
strategies for sustainable development. These should be
developed with wide participation, including
non-government organizations and the public. Agenda
21 puts most of the responsibility for leading change on
national governments, but says they need to work in a
broad series of partnerships with international
organizations, business, regional, state, provincial and
local governments, non-governmental and citizens’
groups.
As Agenda 21 says, only a global partnership will
ensure that all nations will have a safer and more
prosperous future.
Sources: Compiled and collated from IISD, Estonia21, ICLEI and others.
