Environmental issues and sustainable development

As the United Nations and the world are gearing up for Rio+20 — a major global conference that aims to accelerate efforts to promote sustainable development — the United Nations opened a new facility today in Incheon, Republic of Korea, that aims to assist developing countries. The new centre was formally launched at a ceremony in Seoul.

The United Nations Postal Administration issued today a series of eight stamps to commemorate the International Year of Forests, illustrating the important role trees and forests play in people’s lives.

To broaden participation in next year’s United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the United Nations has invited representatives from nine key constituencies, known as major groups, to submit ideas on how the world can move towards sustainable development — a process aimed at promoting economic prosperity and improving the quality of life for everyone, while protecting the environment for present and future generations.

A United Nations General Assembly-mandated Working Group to study issues relating to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction will meet in New York from 31 May-3 June.

A new partnership to assist local communities in managing ever-increasing amounts of waste — and the growing presence of chemicals and hazardous and toxic elements in the general waste stream — was launched today at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.

The Commission on Sustainable Development ended its nineteenth session early Saturday morning, unable to agree on policy decisions on practical measures to advance chemical and waste management, transform transport and mining practices, and establish a long-awaited 10-Year Framework of Programmes for sustainable consumption and production patterns, which was first called for at the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development.

Just one day shy of its anticipated deadline, the Commission on Sustainable Development today heard from experts in four intensive round table meetings, and held subsequent discussions aimed at advancing the adoption tomorrow of a strong outcome document for the Commission’s 2011 policy session.

Twenty years after participants to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro first recognized that unsustainable consumption and production patterns formed the biggest threat to the Earth’s capacity to satisfy human needs, that challenge continued to loom large and finding a framework to control it must be seen as a strategic priority, the Commission on Sustainable Development was told today, as it opened its three-day high-level segment.

The Commission on Sustainable Development had reached a critical moment in its negotiations to develop concrete policy recommendations, delegates were told today as the body discussed progress made by its working groups more than halfway through its annual two-week session.

Meeting briefly at the end of the first week of its annual two-week session, the Commission on Sustainable Development was urged by its Chair to do its utmost — and perhaps go even further — to reach the goal of shaping critical global policies on transport; chemicals; waste management; mining; and a 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns.