Stockholm (NordSIP) – Fifty years ago, the United Nations Conference on the Environment, the first global forum that managed to address environmental issues at the proper level, gathered delegates from some 122 countries in Stockholm. The participants adopted a series of important policy documents, including the Stockholm Declaration and Action Plan for the Human Environment. The UN Environment Programme was born in the aftermath of this same conference.
It is time to reflect on whether we have done as much as we intended to back in 1972 and how to accelerate the progress. The UN will be back in Stockholm this year to commemorate the anniversary. Following months of consultations and discussions with individuals, communities, organisations, and governments worldwide, at the beginning of June, Stockholm+50, an international environmental meeting hosted by the UN General Assembly, will gather high-level participants in the Swedish capital. The theme of the conference is “A healthy planet for the prosperity of all – our responsibility, our opportunity.”
Ahead of the meeting, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) announced on 18 May that they had joined forces to produce an independent report providing a scientific basis for the discussions, Stockholm+50: Unlocking a Better Future. The report presents three broad shifts that can be made, three structural barriers to remove and more than 50 concrete recommendations to unlock a better future.
“In many ways, the world is at a boiling point – with extreme temperatures in South Asia, escalating fuel and food prices, and war and conflict,” says Åsa Persson, Research Director and Deputy CEO for SEI. “In our report, we seek to connect the big picture of intertwined planetary and inequality crises with the promising momentum for change that we see in public awareness and key technologies reaching mass market, to shift from urgency to agency,” she adds.
According to the report, humans have already altered 75% of the planet’s land surface, impacted 66% of the ocean area, and directly or indirectly destroyed 85% of wetlands. It is, therefore, high time to redefine the relationship between humans and nature and tackle decisively the three structural barriers of policy incoherence, weak multilateralism, and lack of accountability.
Pointing to investments as an essential part of the solution, the report recognises the current misalignment of resources. “Today, we have the paradoxical situation of a massive amount of capital ready for sustainability investments, yet persistent funding gaps in low-income countries,” write the authors. They urge more actors and stakeholders, from governments to companies and mission-driven public investments, to participate in global governance and enable the sustainable transition.
“Stockholm+50 is an opportunity to learn from the past, take stock of the present, and take transformational steps to create a legacy of a sustainable future for the planet. With this report, we have aimed to push the envelope and challenge our received wisdom. We now look forward to discussing the recommendations of the report with decision makers and policy institutions worldwide”, says Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of CEEW.
