United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development

“ How can such development serve next century's world of twice as many people relying on the same environment? This realization broadened our view of development. We came to see it not in its restricted context of economic growth in developing countries. We came to see that a new development path was required, one that sustained human progress not just in a few pieces for a few years, but for the entire planet into the distant future. Thus 'sustainable development' becomes a goal not just for the 'developing' nations, but for industrial ones as well. ”

“ It was felt that the sky was so vast and clear nothing could ever change its colour, our rivers so big and their water so plentiful that no amount of human activity could ever change their quality, and there were trees and natural forests so plentiful that we will never finish them. ”

“ When a population exceeds the carrying capacity of the available resources, it can become a liability in efforts to improve people's welfare. But talking of population just as numbers glosses over an important point: People are also a creative resource, and this creativity is an asset societies must tap. To nurture and enhance that asset, people's physical well-being must be improved through better nutrition, health care, and so on. And education must be provided to help them become more capable and creative, skilful, productive, and better able to deal with day-to-day problems. ”

“ Two interrelated concerns lie at the heart of our recommendations on financial flows: one concerns the quantity, the other the 'quality' of resource flows to developing countries. The need for more resources cannot be evaded. The idea that developing countries would do better to live within their limited means is a cruel illusion. Global poverty cannot be reduced by the governments of poor countries acting alone. At the same time, more aid and other forms of finance, while necessary, are not sufficient. Projects and programmes must be designed for sustainable development. ”

“ Failures to manage the environment and to sustain development threaten to overwhelm all countries. Environment and development are not separate challenges; they are inexorably linked. Development cannot subsist upon a deteriorating environmental resource base; the environment cannot be protected when growth leaves out of account the costs of environmental destruction. These problems cannot be treated separately by fragmented institutions and policies. ”

“ This Commission believes that people can build a future that is more prosperous, more just, and more secure. Our report, Our Common Future, is not a prediction or ever increasing environmental decay, poverty, and hardship in an ever more polluted world among ever decreasing resources. We see instead the possibility for a new era of economic growth, one that must be based on policies that sustain and expand the environmental resource base. And we believe such growth to be absolutely essential to relieve the great poverty that is deepening in much of the developing world. ”

“ Is not the development of nuclear energy on an industrial scale premature? Will it not be fatal to our civilization, to the ecosystem of our planet? on our planet so rich in all sorts energy sources, this question can be discussed quite calmly. We have a real choice in this, both on a state and a governmental level, and also on the level of individuals and professionals.
We must put all our efforts to improve the technology itself, to develop and elaborate strict standards and norms of quality, of safety of a technology. ”

“ Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The concept of sustainable development does imply limits – not absolute limits but limitations imposed by the present state of technology and social organization on environmental resources and by the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effects of human activities. ”

“ Fortunately, this new reality coincides with more positive developments new to this century. We can move information and goods faster around the globe than ever before; we ran produce more food and more goods with less investment of resources; our technology and science gives us at least the potential to look deeper into and better understand natural systems. From space, we can see and study the Earth as an organism whose health depends on the health of all its parts. We have the power to reconcile human affairs with natural laws and to thrive in the process. ”

“ Nations must turn away from the destructive logic of an 'arms culture' and focus instead on their common future. The level of armaments and the destruction they could bring about bear no relation to the political conflict that triggered the arms competition in the first place. Nations must not become prisoners of their own arms race. They must face the common danger inherent in the weapons of the nuclear age. They must face the common challenge of providing for sustainable development and act in concert to remove the growing environmental sources of conflict. ”

“ The challenge of sustainable agriculture is to raise not just average productivity and incomes, but also the productivity and incomes of those poor in resources. And food security is not just a question of raising food production, but of ensuring that the rural and urban poor do not go hungry during the short term or midst a local food scarcity. All this requires the systematic promotion of equity in food production and distribution. ”

“ The oceans are marked by a fundamental unity from which there is no escape. Interconnected cycles of energy, climate, marine living resources, and human activities move through coastal waters, regional seas, and the closed oceans. The effects of urban, industrial, and agricultural growth are contained within no nation's Exclusive Economic Zone; they pass through currents of water and air from nation to nation, and through complex food chains from species to species, distributing the burdens of development, if not the benefits, to both rich and poor. ”

“ The failures that we need to correct arise both from poverty and from the short-sighted way in which we have often pursued prosperity. Many parts of the world are caught in a vicious downwards spiral: Poor people are forced to overuse environmental resources to survive from day to day, and their impoverishment of their environment further impoverishes them, making their survival ever more difficult and uncertain. ”

“ Energy is not so much a single product as a mix of products and services, a mix upon which the welfare of individuals, the sustainable development of nations, and the life-supporting capabilities of the global ecosystem depend. ”

“ Perhaps our most urgent task today is to persuade nations of the need to return to multilateralism. The challenge of reconstruction after the Second World Hat was the real motivating power behind the establishment of our post-war international economic system. The challenge of finding sustainable development paths ought to provide the impetus – indeed the imperative – for a renewed search for multilateral solutions and a restructured international economic system of co-operation. ”

“ The world's environmental problems are greater than the sum of those in each country. Certainly, they can no longer be dealt with purely on a nation-state basis. The World Commission on Environment and Development must strike at this fundamental problem by recommending specific ways for countries to cooperate to surmount sovereignty, to embrace international instruments in order to deal with global threats. The growing trend towards isolationism demonstrates that the current rhythm of history is out of harmony with human aspirations, even with its chances for survival. ”

“ The challenge of increasing food production to keep pace with demand, while retaining the essential ecological integrity of production systems, is colossal both in its magnitude and complexity. But we have the knowledge we need to conserve our land and water resources. New technologies provide opportunities for increasing productivity while reducing pressures on resources. A new generation of farmers combine experience with education. With these resources at our command, we can meet the needs of the human family. Standing in the way is the narrow focus of agricultural planning and policies. ”

“ The main link between trade and sustainable development is the use of non-renewable raw materials to earn foreign exchange. Developing countries face the dilemma of having to use commodities as exports, in order to break foreign exchange constraints on growth, while also having to minimize damage to the environmental resource base supporting this growth. There are other links between trade and sustainable development: if protectionism raises barriers against manufactured exports, for example, developing nations have less scope for diversifying away from traditional commodities. ”

“ Today, the conservation of wild living resources is on the agenda of governments; nearly 4 per cent of the Earth's land area is managed explicitly to conserve species and ecosystems, and all but a small handful of countries have national parks. The challenge facing nations today is no longer deciding whether conservation is a good idea, but rather how it can be implemented in the national interest and within the means available in each country. ”

“ The mechanics of increased international cooperation required to assure sustainable development will vary from sector to sector and in relation to particular institutions. But it is fundamental that the transition to sustainable development be managed jointly by all nations. The unity of human needs requires a functioning multilateral system that respects the democratic principle of consent and accepts that not only the Earth but also the world is one. ”

“ Denying people rights end peoples' interests is pushing us to a situation where it is only the poverty that has a very prosperous future in Africa. And it is our hope that your Commission, the World Commission, will not overlook these problems of human rights in Africa and will put emphasis on it. Because it is only free people, people who have rights, who are mature and responsible citizens, who then participate in the development and in the protection of the environment. ”

“ There has been a growing realization in national governments and multilateral institutions that it is impossible to separate economic development issues from environment issues; many forms of development erode the environmental resources upon which they must be based, and environmental degradation can undermine economic development. Poverty is a major cause and effect of global environmental problems. It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality. ”

“ The existence- of nuclear weapons and the destructive potential inherent in the velocity and intensity of modern conventional warfare have given rise to a new understanding of the requirements for security among nations. In the nuclear age nations can no longer obtain security at each other's expense. They must seek security through cooperation, agreements, and mutual restraint; they must seek common security. [10] Hence interdependence, which is so fundamental in the realm of environment and economics, is a fact also in the sphere of arms competition and military security. ”

“ Pollution control has become a thriving branch of industry in its own right in several industrialized countries. High-pollution industries such as iron and steel, other metals, chemicals, and energy production have often led in expanding into the fields of pollution control equipment, detoxification and waste disposal technology, measurement instruments, and monitoring systems. Not only have these industries become, more efficient and competitive, but many have also found new opportunities for investment, sales, and exports. ”

“ For example, policies that conserve the quality of agricultural land and protect forests improve the long-term prospects for agricultural development. An increase in the efficiency of energy and material use serves ecological purposes but can also reduce costs. But the compatibility of environmental and economic objectives is often lost in the pursuit of individual or group gains, with little regard for the impacts on others, with a blind faith in science's ability to find solutions, and in ignorance of the distant consequences of today's decisions. ”

“ Changing the quality of growth requires changing our approach to development efforts to take account of all of their effects. For instance, a hydropower project should not be seen merely as a way of producing more electricity: its effects upon the local environment and the livelihood of the local community must be included in any balance sheets. Thus the abandonment of a hydro project because it will disturb a rare ecological system could be a measure of progress, not a setback to development. ”

“ By the same token, without agreed, equitable, and enforceable rules governing the rights and duties of states in respect of the global commons, the pressure of demands on finite resources will destroy their ecological integrity over time. Future generations will be impoverished, and the people who suffer most will be those who live in poor countries that can least assert their own claims in a free-for-all.
3. Management of the various commons – the oceans, outer space, and Antarctica – is at different stages of evolution, as is the very 'commonality' of these areas. ”

“ Even to contemplate dumping radioactive waste in waters that belong to all of us as part of our global heritage is an outrage. For us to make such important decisions on behalf of future generations without taking into account the morality of using international waters as an exclusive rubbish bin is an arrogant act. ”

“ But the Commission's hope for the future is conditional on decisive political action now to begin managing environmental resources to ensure both sustainable human progress and human survival. We are not forecasting a future; we are serving a notice — an urgent notice based on the latest and best scientific evidence – that the time has cone to take the decisions needed to secure the resources to sustain this and coming generations. We do not offer a detailed blueprint for action, but instead a pathway by which the peoples of the world may enlarge their sphere of cooperation. ”

“ The ultimate potential impacts of a greenhouse warming could be catastrophic. It is our considered judgement that it is already very late to start the process of policy consideration. The process of heightening public awareness, of building support for national policies, and finally for developing multilateral efforts to slow the rate of emissions growth will take time to implement.
The greenhouse issue is an opportunity as well as a challenge; not surprisingly, it provides another important reason to implement sustainable development strategies. ”

“ Conserving the agricultural resource base and livelihood security of the poor can be mutually supportive in three ways. First, secure resources and adequate livelihoods lead to good husbandry and sustainable management. Second, they ease rural-to-urban migration, stimulate agricultural production from resources that otherwise would be underused, and reduce the need for food to be produced elsewhere. Third, by combating poverty, they help to slow population growth. ”

“ The accumulation of knowledge and the development of technology can enhance the carrying capacity of the resource base. But ultimate limits there are, and sustainability requires that long before these are reached, the world must ensure equitable access to the constrained resource and reorient technological efforts to relieve the pressure.
A communications gap has kept environmental, population, and development assistance groups apart for too long, preventing us from being aware of our common interest and realizing our combined power. ”

“ Sustainable development involves more than growth, it requires a change in the content of growth, to make it less material- and energy-intensive and more equitable in its impact. These changes are required in all countries as part at a package of measures to maintain the stock or ecological capital, to improve the distribution of income, and to reduce the degree of vulnerability to economic crises. ”

“ Meeting essential needs requires not only a new era of economic growth for nations in which the majority are poor, but an assurance that those poor get their fair share of the resources required to sustain that growth. ”

“ Food security requires more than good conservation programmes, which can be – and usually are – overridden and undermined by inappropriate agricultural, economic, and trade policies. Nor is it just a matter of adding an environmental component to programmes. Food strategies must take into account all the policies that bear upon the threefold challenge of shifting production to where it is most needed, of securing the livelihoods of the rural poor, and of conserving resources. ”