GLOBAL: New IRIN publication to mark Rio+20

Follow @{0}RIO DE JANEIRO, 13 June 2012 (IRIN) - Ahead of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), popularly known as the Rio+20 Conference, IRIN has released a new publication entitled Living with Climate Change, which contains a series of articles compiled into a booklet.

UNCSD, which takes place in Brazil on 20-22 June, has been organized to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa.

At the Rio+20 Conference, world leaders, other government representatives, the private sector, NGOs and other groups, will come together to discuss how the world can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an ever more crowded planet. More than 50,000 people are participating, including more than 100 heads of state.

“Rio+20 is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make real progress towards the sustainable economy of the future,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a news conference in New York, ahead of the conference.

Earlier this year, the UN released a report entitled Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing to highlight how sustainable development could be incorporated into mainstream economic policy. The report was informed by the urgent need to achieve greater integration among the three pillars of sustainable development - the economic, the social and the environmental.

It is in this context that IRIN compiled a series of articles examining the current debates and policies in practice, and how communities and their governments are working with specialists to integrate the concept of sustainable development into their national programmes on a day-to-day basis. It also focuses on how integrating this concept makes communities and governments more resilient and helps to wean them off aid and external support.

The publication is available to participants at Rio+20, and also on the IRIN website.