An independent scientific report for the UN international meeting, ‘Stockholm+50: a healthy planet

As we mark a half-century of action since the 1972 Stockholm Conference, we must prepare to act now for the future, and to lay the groundwork for the kinds of systemic changes we need for a healthy planet and a better world for all. [...] On the table will be many questions, focused on how the environmental dimension of sustainable development can accelerate the implementation of commitments in the context of the Decade of Action and achieve a sustainable and inclusive recovery from Covid-19. [...] The following overview of the state of the planet and of human development 50 years later recognizes the intertwined crises of the urgency of our planetary state and 25 A legacy of change extreme inequality. [...] The year before the conference, the UN report Development and Environment, known as the Founex Report, helped to bridge the divide between developed and developing countries for the purposes of the 1972 Stockholm Conference (Haq & Jolly, 2008, p. [...] The subsequent Cocoyoc Declaration in Mexico in 1974 represented one of the earliest attempts by the UN to connect environmental protection and redistribution of global economic and social resources (UNEP/UNCTAD, 1975): We recognize the threats to both the ‘inner limits’ of basic human needs and the ‘outer limits’ of the planet’s physical resources.