There is a weary predictability to global environment conferences. The prospect of Armageddon is held out, many words are spoken, some commitments are made to prevent a last-minute collapse of talks, and exhausted delegates eventually go home. Then all too little happens. Even less would happen if there were no conference pressure to set targets. Precisely for that reason, the conference record of the past 50 years (since the first environment conference at Stockholm in 1972) inclines one towards environment pessimism.
Still, it would be wrong to think that nothing has been achieved. A great deal has, though far too
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