Sustainable development
Nowadays, it is widely recognised that protection of the environment, international economic co-operation and social development are mutually dependent. At the United Nations, these three key subjects are tackled in the UN General Assembly’s Second Committee, under the broad heading of “sustainable development”.
Sustainable development includes a wide range of issues in which the UN plays a key international role. Such issues include climate change, bio-diversity, desertification, forestry, oceans, freshwater and sanitation, human settlements, sustainable fisheries, renewable energy and disaster reduction. All of these featured at the UN’s 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. The outcomes of this Summit are the blueprint for current international co-operation in these areas. Click to see more on the World Summit, including the Plan of Implementation and the Political Declaration by Heads of State and Government.)
UN bodies
As well as the UN’s Second Committee, which considers these issues each year during the UN General Assembly, other UN bodies take an interest in sustainable development. The Economic and Social Council (EcoSoc) debates a number of sustainable development issues each year at its session in July. The UN’s annual Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) holds a detailed discussion of progress in the sustainable development field (with particular focus on specific subjects in two-year cycles). This refines and develops international policy.
UN work and international policy in the field of sustainable development are supported by the work of the UN-Habitat (www.unhabitat.org) and by the Department for Economic and Social Affairs within the UN Secretariat. There are also small secretariats within the UN to underpin continuing international negotiation on climate change (the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change); desertification (the secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification); bio-diversity (the secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity); and forests (the secretariat of the UN Forum on Forests).
UK policy
The UK is strongly committed to sustainable development, and engages fully in UN debate on all aspects of the subject. We are a major donor to UNEP and UN-Habitat. We are members of CSD and EcoSoc, and of the Governing Council of both UNEP and UN-Habitat.
One of the UK’s ten International Priorities over the next decade is achieving climate security by promoting a faster transition to a sustainable, low carbon global economy.
Future events
The Second Committee will debate a number of sustainable development issues in the sixty-second session of the General Assembly in the autumn, including climate change, desertification and drought, strategies for disaster reduction, and biological diversity.
