There were a number of key events and milestones in the run-up to the UN General Assembly Resolution that called for the Summit in December 2009. As Stakeholder Forum advocated strongly for a Summit and was involved in many of the discussions leading to the resolution, we made a record of the key moments.
25th September 2007: Standing before the United Nations General Assembly one day after the High Level Event on Climate Change, the President of Brazil proposed convening in 2012 a World Summit on the environment, twenty years after the landmark UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992.
May 2009: A number of countries have made submissions to the UN Secretary General on the possibility of an Earth Summit in 2012. The submissions vary in length and detail, but many offer views on the focus of the proposed Summit and the specific issues that need to be addressed.
26 September 2008: In a speech given at the U.N. General Assembly, Prime Minister Han Seung-soo proposed that South Korea host the proposed ‘Rio+20’ Earth Summit in 2012. He highlighted the important strategic role that South Korea could play in ‘bridging advanced and developing nations’.
27 October 2008: In a statement to the Second Committee of the UN Assembly, the Group of 77 (G77) and China expressed their firm support for a Rio+20 Earth Summit in 2012. Highlighting the ‘multidimensional’ threats the world now faces, and stressing that many of the challenges identified in Rio in 1992 ‘still remain or have worsened’, the G77 and China called for the Summit to be hosted by Brazil in 2012 to ‘review and assess progress’.
4th November 2008: Antigua and Barbuda as Chair of the G77 has tabled a draft resolution for the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly calling for a World Summit in 2012. The resolution expresses deep concern that ‘although some progress has been achieved since the landmark Conference of 1972, the Earth Summit in 1992 and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, there is a persistent implementation gap, and many commitments by the international community have not been fully met’.
11th November 2008: The Brazilian government has released a Concept Paper outlining the kinds of issues to be addressed by a possible Rio+2O Earth Summit in 2012. The paper emphasises the need to promote discussion on the implementation of the Rio Principles outlined in the Rio Declaration from the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992.