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6 - The Rio Conference and Institutional Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2022

Michael W. Manulak
Michael W. Manulak
Affiliation:
Carleton University, Ottawa
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Summary

This chapter focuses on the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the Rio “Earth Summit.” It shows how, despite incentives to address institutional dysfunction and mounting global environmental problems by institutionalizing sustainable development within the United Nations system, divergent expectations persisted until momentum built toward UNCED. The Rio conference, which marked the twentieth anniversary of the 1972 Stockholm conference, emerged as a Temporal Focal Point in United Nations environmental politics. Convergent expectations triggered a significant increase in political and analytical investments in change processes from state and non-state actors, leading to a transformation of the informational and political context. These investments produced significant institutional change, including the creation of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and the institutionalization of the World Bank-operated Global Environment Facility. States also launched the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, a set of Forest Principles, and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

Keywords

Global environmental politicsinternational organizationsinternational instititionsUnited NationsUnited Nations Environment ProgrammeUNEPinstitutional changesustainable developmentRio conferenceEarth SummitUnited Nations Conference on Environment and DevelopmentAgenda 21climate changebiodiversityenvironment and developmentinternational developmentCommission on Sustainable DevelopmentCSDUNCED
Type
Chapter
Information
Change in Global Environmental Politics
Temporal Focal Points and the Reform of International Institutions
 , pp. 176 - 206
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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