Johannesburg 2002 World Summit On Sustainable Development. What Is At Stake? The Contribution Of Scientists To The Debate

The World Sustainable Development Summit takes place in Johannesburg from 29th August to 4th September 2002. It is the result of a long, slow process of realization that began in the early seventies. Back in 1972, at the Stockholm conference, the environment appeared in debates on economic development and nations were faced with the reality of their global inter-dependence. In 1992, the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, forced thoughts to turn to the sustainability of development. This resulted in Agenda 21 and a number of highly significant conventions, including those on climate and biodiversity. First economics, then the environment; the next summit is duty bound to consider social development as the cornerstone of sustainable development. Considérable progress in scientific knowledge has accompanied and illuminated every stage of this international realization and has contributed to the establishment of Conventions. In this work, French scientists, including economists, an anthropologist, an ecologist, an agronomist and atmospheric physicists, attempt to explain the stages of international realisation of what sustainable development represents. It also aims to make available to the reader, everything necessary to understand the issues that will be discussed in Johannesburg.