Education for Sustainable Development and the Rio Conventions

Chapter 36 of Agenda 21, a key document of the 1992 Earth Summit, emphasised reorienting education towards sustainable development. While two of the Rio conventions, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), developed communication, education and public awareness (CEPA) strategies, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) established their awareness raising, communication and education (ARCE) unit in the secretariat.

The concept of education for sustainable development (ESD) largely evolved independently through the leadership of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and has had, as yet, little impact on the programmes of the conventions. However, recent developments seem to lay the foundation for ESD to be integrated into the conventions. UNCCD has started infusing ESD thinking into its educational programmes.

The recently concluded CBD Conference of Parties (COP 11) is important because it not only set education high on the agenda but also connected ESD with the CBD approach towards achieving its targets. Similarly, UNFCCC at COP 18 held at Doha saw 33 multilateral agencies announce the formation of the UN Alliance on Climate Change, Training and Public Awareness. The challenge for the ESD community is to carry this process forward and put in place institutional mechanisms to integrate ESD with the goals of the conventions as we move towards 2014 and beyond.

The current issue of the journal comes in the year that marks 20 years of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. At that time, along with Agenda 21, came the three important multilateral environment conventions on climate change, biological diversity and desertification. This was a period over which the concept of ESD evolved.

The UN DESD started in 2005 and UNESCO was given the responsibility to be the lead agency on behalf of the UN. And so, 20 years after Rio, the authors felt it would be appropriate to ask the DESD secretariat at UNESCO to compile and edit a special section which would help explore the way ESD has evolved over the three conventions. UNESCO has contributed to the special section on ESD to this issue of JESD.

Keywordseducation, sustainable development, environmental education, desertification, biodiversity, climate change, Rio Conventions