Global governments recognise ‘collective failures’ at Stockholm +50

The summit follows more than 160 Stockholm +50 events across 50 countries, aimed at stimulating an inclusive “whole-of-society and whole-of-government” dialogue on environmental topics.

The 1972 conference put environmental issues on the global agenda for the first time. Today, more than 176 countries have environmental framework laws; 150 countries have enshrined environmental protection or the right to a healthy environment in their constitutions; and 164 countries have created cabinet-level bodies responsible for environmental protection, as per the United Nations.

However, despite more than 500 multilateral agreements, 27 COP climate summits, 15 COP biodiversity summits and three overarching Earth Summits since the significant event, humanity is still failing to meet the UNEP’s goals on human development, air quality, land use, water and biodiversity.

In the face of the increasingly worsening status of the planet, a number of ministers at Stockholm +50 took the opportunity to recognise their “collective failures” in making meaningful environmental progress. UN chief António Guterres, meanwhile, demanded world leaders “lead us out of this mess”, declaring that, “We need to change course – now – and end our senseless and suicidal war against nature.”

While critics have welcomed governments’ admission of failure in the face of UNEP targets, they stress that now is the time for urgent action. Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International, said: “I commend the genuine acknowledgement of past failures and a call by many Ministers to embed a clear and measurable nature-positive global goal by 2030 … This now needs to be accompanied by actions at scale.” He added that, “We must make much more progress in the next decade than we have collectively in the past 50 years.”

However, despite widespread calls to action from ministers, activists and the private sector, no new meaningful pledges were initiated at the summit. Instead, governments only reaffirmed previous UNEP commitments.

In their final remarks, the Presidents of Stockholm +50 made 10 recommendations. These include:

• Place human wellbeing at the centre of a healthy planet and prosperity for all
• Recognise and implement the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment
• Adopt system-wide change in the way our current economic system works to contribute to a healthy planet
• Strengthen national implementation of existing commitments for a healthy planet
• Align public and private financial flows with environmental, climate and sustainable development commitments
• Accelerate system-wide transformations of high impact sectors, such as food, energy, water, buildings and construction, manufacturing, and mobility
• Rebuild relationships of trust for strengthened cooperation and solidarity
• Reinforce and reinvigorate the multilateral system
• Recognise intergenerational responsibility as a cornerstone of sound policy-making
• Take forward the Stockholm+50 outcomes through reinforcing and reenergising the ongoing international processes

Some have condemned these recommendations as vague and intangible, pointing to a wider failing of the overall Stockholm Conference. Oliver Greenfield of the Green Economy Coalition, for example, writes that, “Despite much well-meaning rhetoric and a beautiful opening ceremony that preached solidarity, the killer stat of the conference came from our friends the Stockholm Environment Institute. Since 1972, only 10% of all the environmental treaties negotiated in these endless sustainable development conferences have seen effective implementation.”

Elsewhere, Swedish sustainable development expert Kaj Embrén lamented the fact that “no meaningful commitments were agreed upon” in an article titled ‘Stockholm +50: A climate failure of five decades?’

Others, however, claim that the event has proven a valuable galvanising exercise. “We believe that we have – collectively – mobilised and used the potential of this meeting,” said Sweden’s Minister for Climate and the Environment, Annika Strandhäll. “We now have a blueprint of acceleration to take further. Stockholm+50 has been a milestone on our path towards a healthy planet for all, leaving no one behind.”