Abstract
The process leading to the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (also dubbed Rio+20) has served to highlight the very real prospects of increasing resource scarcity, rapid population growth, and, consequently, multiple strains on our ability to provide for even our most basic needs. In the opening words of the summary of the authoritative 2012 GEO-5 Global Environmental Outlook: ‘The currently observed changes in the Earth System are unprecedented in human history.’ Already, the report cautions, ‘several critical global, regional and local thresholds are close or have been exceeded,’ bringing the likelihood of multiple and possibly irreversible changes to planetary life-support functions and to human social systems.1 Looking back on developments since the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, and to adopt the words of the UN secretary-general’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability, published in January 2012: ‘[P]rogress...
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
