The Significance of Stockholm+50
The months leading up to the Stockholm+50 Conference in June 2022 have seen a frenzy of activity, as the international environmental community prepares to celebrate major milestones in its history and channel new momentum into efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Ambassador Johanna Lissinger-Peitz, Deputy Director, Ministry of Environment, Sweden sat down with our Earth Negotiations Bulletin team to examine why it matters that we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original Stockholm Conference in 1972 and how we live up to its vision.
Follow our Earth Negotiations Bulletin team's coverage of Stockholm+50 and explore with IISD the history, lessons learned, and road ahead for sustainable development.
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The Legacy of the Stockholm Conference
In 1972, the Stockholm Conference set off a chain of events that rewrote how countries tackle environmental challenges. How do we take the lessons of the past half century and apply them to our triple planetary crisis?
What Comes After Stockholm+50?
World leaders will mark half a century since the 1972 Stockholm Conference... and then depart. What comes next as we face accelerating societal and environmental challenges?
Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to guide public policies and inspire societal actors to promote sustainable development worldwide. The core of this programme is 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 specific targets, most of them to be achieved by 2030. Although the SDGs are not the first effort to set global goals (and they have been criticized earlier on), they are still by far the most comprehensive and detailed attempt by the United Nations to advance sustainable development. After six years of implementation, the question arises whether these 17 SDGs have had any political impact within national and global governance to address pressing challenges such as poverty eradication, social justice and environmental protection.
Web of resilience
Pakistan's development model has still not recognised the limits of the natural environment and the damage it would cause, if violated, to the sustainability of development and to the health and well-being of its population. Pakistan’s environment journey began with Stockholm Declaration in 1972. A delegation led by Nusrat Bhutto represented the country at the Stockholm meeting, resulting in the establishment of the Urban Affairs Division (UAD), the precursor of today’s Ministry of Climate Change. In setting the country’s environmental agenda, we were inspired by the Stockholm Principles, but in reality, we have mostly ignored them for the last five decades.