Québec at Rio+20

Background

For some 40 years, the United Nations has played a leading role in sustainable development, organizing, in 1972, the first world summit on this issue, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment that sparked the international community into awareness of Earth’s limited capacity to support human activities. Heads of State and government leaders in attendance acknowledged that economic development could not continue absent the consideration of its harmful effects on the environment. One of the important achievements of that conference was to create the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), whose mandate was to “provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment.”

In 1983, the United Nations established the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), chaired by Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. The General Assembly resolution establishing the commission tasked it with proposing long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development and with recommending ways and means to meet environmental challenges based on North-South cooperation. In 1987, the WCED submitted its report, entitled Our Common Future, also known as The Brundtland Report, which provided a universal definition of the notion of sustainable development and served as the basis for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development that was held in Rio de Janeiro, five years later.

Québec’s path to sustainable development

Québec has taken many initiatives to raise awareness of the nature and principles of sustainable development and to foster the emergence of behaviour that is compatible with it. You can learn more about events that have placed Québec on the road to sustainable development.