When did the environmental concern acquire a political character?

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Environmental concerns have a long history; awareness of environmental consequences of economic growth acquired an increasingly political character from 1960s onwards. The Club of Rome, a global think tank, published a book of 1972 entitled Limits to Growth, dramatising the potential depletion of Earth’s resources against backdrop of rapidly growing world population. International agencies, including United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), began holding international conferences and promoting detailed studies to get a more coordinated and effective response to environmental problems. Since then, environment has emerged as a significant issue of global politics. The growing focus on environmental issues within arena of global politics was firmly consolidated at United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, of June 1992. This was also called Earth Summit. The summit revealed that countries of First World, generally referred to as ‘global North’, were pursuing a different environmental agenda than poor and developing countries of Third World, called ‘global South’. Whereas Northern states were concerned with ozone depletion and global warming, Southern states were anxious to address relationship between economic development and environmental management.