The origin of sustainable development

Sustainability is a word that has literally marked the end of the last century, quickly becoming part of our daily vocabulary since protecting the environment is now a global challenge and political theme of major importance.

The Intergovernmental Panel Group on climate change was founded in 1988, formed by a task force of scientists from two UN bodies, the WMO (World Meteorological Organisation) and the UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) to study the causes, impact and possible solutions to the problem of climate change. It all started as soon as soon as “it began to dawn on us” how life on our planet is deeply bonded with our own personal lives.

We woke up to the fact that stopping environmental pollution was not only a political belief or a good lifestyle choice, but above all a political and moral duty for future generations.
A global cultural change took hold as people understood the urgency to act in a responsible manner to protect the planet and avoid future devastation.

As soon as the scientific world established that the emissions of greenhouse gases, in the form of carbon dioxide (C02) into the atmosphere could contribute to global warming, the importance of the issue came under the world’s spotlight.

At the United Nations Environment Conference in Rio de Janeiro,1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) was adopted and became the first response to the climate change challenge. The Convention established a binding legal structure to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations to avoid “harmful interference with climate”.

Since 1988, there has been a progressive reduction of C02 emissions with the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the Paris agreements of 2015. Unfortunately, all these efforts have been insufficient to date and not enough progress has been achieved to protect the planet in the name of sustainable development. The latest 2023 report issued by the IPCC is brutal to say the least.

Delegates from all 195 Member States recently approved the document line by line. It is intended to be used by the leaders of each country as a guideline for the crucial choices that are called for and a final appeal on how to deal with the effects of global warming. Among the findings contained in the report are that we have the highest CO2 concentration in the last two million years and the rate of sea levels rising is the fastest in 3000 years. This study by the intergovernmental expert group, IPCC, founded in 1988, shows that the current rise in temperature of 1.1 degrees has already caused a dangerous upheaval to nature as well as human well-being across the planet. The climate impact is even worse than the last IPCC Synthesis Report forecast of 2014. Basically, it underlines that CO2 emissions must be cut by 43% before 2030.

Governments should act quickly, abandoning fossil fuels for renewable energy and other low-emission carbon technology, through investments in increased energy efficiency, rethink agriculture, restore forests and degraded countryside.