United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development  

The UN held Earth Summit 2012 in Rio last year - Rio+20.  This resulted in a range of major commitments from governments on sustainable development, which are being tracked both by the UN on the Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform and by the NGO Stakeholder Forum on the SD 2015 website with a range of reviews and insights.  ...more/....

This is a complex policy area with many different elements and a lot of diverse governmental, intergovernmental and NGO actors.  Rio+20 is a successor to the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (also in Rio) - and that in turn was a successor to the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm that firmly established an international agenda for the environment and its human dimensions.

The UK House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has just reviewed the outcomes of Rio+20 - with additional evidence.  It has also produced an updated report on the effectiveness of the UK government with respect to sustainable development policy.

Major conference planned for March 2012 in London - Planet Under Pressure - involving various ICSU organisations and UK science organisations.  Part of the lead up to the UN Earth Summit in Rio in June 2012 - twenty years on from the first Rio Summit, and forty years after Stockholm. The NGO Stakeholder Forum on sustainable development also has a dedicated website giving information.