Commentary: Building on Rio+20 To Spur Action for Sustainable Development

terms with the growing need to protect the our environment and the natural systems that support all life. During that time, the focus has gradually shifted from specific and local environmental problems and challenges to a holistic appreciation of the need to attend to the operation of planetary processes and geosystems on a global basis and the way in which the totality of human activities affects them. This requires attention to the whole global economy and the way in which it could operate more sustainably. Several United Nations Conferences have been milestones on this journey of transition toward a more sustainable global economy, and there will no doubt need to be more before the journey is complete. The Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (“Rio+20”), was the latest step in this long march and has launched a number of important new initiatives that need to be brought to fruition in the years ahead.