The Accelerating Environmental Crisis: A 60-year Perspective

This IEF webinar was held on 22 January 2022.

Description: The 1960's saw the first signs that our material civilization was having environmental impacts, leading to the first Earth Day in 1970 and the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972. Warnings of limits to growth led to calls for more sustainable development in the 1980s, with a high point at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 adopting Agenda 21 and conventions on climate change and biodiversity. Despite advances such as the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015, environmental crises have accelerated, driven by vested interests and pushing beyond planetary boundaries now threatening systems collapse. The latest science and the Secretary-General's "Our Common Agenda" lay out the fundamental transformation that is now urgently needed. This overview builds on Arthur Dahl's personal experience of these events over the last 60 years.

Speaker Curriculum Vitae: Dr. Arthur Lyon Dahl is an environmental scientist, President of the International Environment Forum, on the Advisory Board of the Global Governance Forum, and a retired Deputy Assistant Executive Director of UNEP, with 60 years' international experience. He participated in the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, organised the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), served in the secretariat for the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio Earth Summit), coordinated the UN System-wide Earthwatch, and lead the development of indicators of sustainable development. His recent work concerns proposals for UN reform and effective global environmental governance.