Earth summit

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Earth Summit The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development(UNCED), also known as the Rio Summit, Rio Conference, and Earth Summit, was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 1992.

In 2012, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development was also held in Rio, and is also commonly called Rio+20 or Rio Earth Summit 2012. It was held from 20 to 22 June.

Overview Attended- 172 governments, representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

The issues addressed included:

systematic scrutiny of patterns of production — particularly the production of toxic components, such as lead in gasoline, or poisonous waste including radioactive chemicals

alternative sources of energy to replace the use of fossil fuels - climate change

new reliance on public transportation systems in order to reduce vehicle emissions, congestion in cities and the health problems caused by polluted air and smoke

the growing scarcity of water

An important achievement was an agreement on the Climate Change Convention which in turn led to the Kyoto Protocol. Another agreement was to "not carry out any activities on the lands of indigenous peoples that would cause environmental degradation or that would be culturally inappropriate".

The Convention on Biological Diversity was opened for signature at the Earth Summit, and made a start towards redefinition of measures that did not inherently encourage destruction of natural ecoregions and so-called uneconomic growth.

Twelve cities- honoured by the Local Government Honours Award for innovative local environmental programs.

Results The Earth Summit resulted in the following documents:

Rio Declaration on Environment and Development

Agenda 21

Forest Principles

Moreover, important legally binding agreements were opened for signature:

Convention on Biological Diversity

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

Critics, however, point out that many of the agreements made in Rio have not been realized regarding such fundamental issues as fighting poverty and cleaning up the environment.

Green Cross International was founded to build upon the work of the Summit.

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