From June 3 to 14, 1992, the Planet Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Some of our archives recall the objectives of this meeting and its impact on environmental protection.
10 days to save the world
” The largest gathering of political leaders in the history of the planet has opened today in Rio. United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, warned his participants that the World is sick of the underdevelopment suffered by the poorest. It is also a disease of the overdevelopment of the rich that destroys the environment. “
From June 3 to 14, 1992, the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil hosted the Planet Earth Summit.
This summit was held on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the first Conference on the Human Environment, in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972.
It was a major international event with 178 participating countries and thousands of scientists, representatives of non-governmental organizations and the media.
Our special correspondent Jacques Rivard reports on Newscast of June 3, 1992, through the declarations of several leaders, promises that the Rio Summit must make.
The report of the conference president, Canadian Maurice Strong, is almost cruelly straightforward.
These types of people, he insisted, are out of control.
Our unbridled development will destroy the planet and our civilization, he continued.
Our approach to economic development must examine and stabilize population growth.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, for his part pleaded that part of the military spending should be turned into sustainable development projects.
One of the pioneers of the concept of sustainable development, Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, is calling on rich countries to pay an additional 10 billion dollars to combat development problems.
The Rio Summit also confirms that many more billions of dollars will be needed to improve the world’s environment.
However, at this summit, Jacques Rivard recalls, we could not agree on who should pay this amount.
Mixed results
” The man after Rio must also love the world. He must love flowers, birds, trees. All this natural environment that we are constantly destroying. “
Did the summit participants listen to the advice to protect the environment released by the Secretary General of the United Nations?
On June 14, 1992, our special correspondent, Jacques Rivard, appeared at Newscast an analysis of the Planet Earth Summit in Rio.
The positive aspect is that the three conventions were adopted by the 153 countries participating in the meeting.
The first is related to biological diversity.
The second faces the plague of the desert.
The third is a framework convention to combat the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.
A declaration on forest protection was also approved.
Jacques Rivard also noted some failures at the Rio Summit.
For example, the United States and Canada failed that only one declaration on forest protection was adopted.
The resistance of developing countries, fearing their sovereignty, hindered progress.
Moreover, none of the industrialized countries, except France, have agreed to devote 0.7% of its gross domestic product to development efforts.
However, this commitment is an important pillar of Agenda 21 endorsed at the Rio Summit.
In this context, it is not surprising that the evaluation of event participants was mixed.
The former Premier of Quebec, Pierre Marc Johnson, was, for his part, rather optimistic.
He believes that mechanisms have been put in place to move forward, especially at the economic level.
Jim McNeil, adviser to Premier Gro Harlem Brundtland, has a completely different opinion.
Deforestation and global warming will continue at the same pace despite the Rio Summit, he lamented.
Mixed results confirmed
On June 25, 1997, the show hosted Punto, Achille Michaud, interviewed Rio Summit President Maurice Strong to get his assessment five years after the conference was held.
Its assessment is somewhat negative.
The various problems plaguing our ecosystem are far from being solved.
If there had been some progress since Rio, the environment would have worsened on a global scale, the diplomat argues.
National governments act slower than many citizens, municipalities and business sectors.
Maurice Strong acknowledges, moreover, that Canada has not succeeded in honoring the promises made to Brazil.
He’s not the only one at fault, he remarks.
Most of the other most industrialized countries have also failed to achieve the goals they set themselves at the Rio Summit.
The diplomat, however, shows a certain optimism. Some elements are constructive according to Maurice Strong.
The younger generations can easily understand that their future is tied to the health of the Earth’s environment.
We must renew our commitments to the planet and remind our leaders that we depend on them, the diplomat concluded.
The Rio Summit was followed by several other international conferences where governments tried, with varying degrees of success, to coordinate efforts to prevent the worst for our planet.
Like Rio, these summits raised both a lot of hope and a lot of disappointment.
Source: Radio-Canada
