Stockholm +50 Conference

In News

• ‘The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Environment’ or ‘The Stockholm conference’ recently completed its 50 years.
• To commemorate this, the Stockholm +50 conference is scheduled to be held in Sweden.

India’s agenda on global environmental issues for the conference

• A push for equity in global climate change negotiations will be among India’s key agendas.
• Urgent, collective global action is required to tackle the current environmental issues.
• For the developing Nations:
  • The developing world needs not just an industrial ‘transition’, but an industrial renaissance — a flowering of industries that will create jobs and prosperity along with a clean environment.
• For the developing Nations:
  • The developed nations, with their historical experiences, must take lead in the global transition towards net-zero & low carbon industry. 
  • Green premium associated with zero or low carbon tech must be compensated to trigger demand at the required scale in appropriate ways

Report by The Stockholm Environment Institute and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW): 

• The Stockholm Environment Institute and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) also presented a report at the Stockholm Conference after taking stock of actions taken by governments globally during the last 50 years and making.
• The report has prepared recommendations for action, guided by an advisory panel consisting of 27 experts in the field of sustainable development science and policy.
• Findings of the Report:
  • Urgent Transformative Actions:
    • The planetary crisis and the extreme inequality require transformative action and our economic systems are the core driver of many of these problems.
  • Target analysis:
    • Since 1972, only around one-tenth of the hundreds of global environment and sustainable development targets agreed to by countries have been achieved or seen significant progress.
    • According to the report, the use of natural resources has more than tripled from 1970, with the benefits emanating from the usage are unevenly distributed across countries and regions.
  • Growing global Inequalities:
    • The growing inequalities extend to future generations and the quality of their lives, with accelerating environmental change and risk of tipping points being breached.
    • The poorest half of the global population owns barely 2% of the total global wealth, while the richest 10% owns 76% of all wealth, the report said.
    • The poorest half of the global population contributed 10% of emissions; the richest 10% of the global population emitted more than half of the total carbon emissions during 1990–2015,” it added.
  • A call for ensuring economic prosperity for all:
    • High-income countries have consumed most of these resources, with carbon dioxide consumption footprints that are more than 13 times the level of low-income countries. 
    • Ensuring lasting prosperity for all and bringing emission and resource footprints within ecological limits requires a complete rethink of our ways of living.

Way ahead:

• Stockhom+50 could be a new watershed moment for environmental protection and human wellbeing. 
• It’s high time we start narrowing the ‘gap’ between targets and actual actions since we have a limited window to reverse climate change and the course of our future.
• Stockholm+50 is an opportunity for global leaders to take transformative actions that will redefine the human relationship with nature. 
• This calls for action in the critical areas of finance, technology, and sustainable lifestyles. 
• Countries must move beyond gridlocked international negotiations and show the political will needed for bold actions to safeguard the future of our planet and of our future generations.

Source: HT