Read the passage and answer the questions:
Environment and natural resources
According to the Human Development Report 2016 of the United Nations Development Programme, 663 million people in developing countries have no access to safe water and 2.4 billion have no access to sanitation, resulting in the death of more than three million children every year. The Club of Rome, a global think tank, published a book in 1972 entitled ‘Limits to Growth’, dramatising the potential depletion of the Earth’s resources against the backdrop of rapidly growing world population. The growing focus on environmental issues within the arena of global politics was firmly consolidated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992. This was also called the Earth Summit. ‘Commons’ are those resources which are not owned by anyone but rather shared by a community. Cooperation over the global commons is not easy. There have been many path-breaking agreements such as the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, the 1987 Montreal Protocol, and the 1991 Antarctic Environmental Protocol. To address environmental issues, the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) provides that the parties should act to protect the climate system “on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.”
What was consolidated in the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Growing focus on environmental issues within the global politics
Option (1) Human Rights issues along with ecology — Incorrect. The conference was on environment and development; it consolidated the focus on environmental issues, not on human rights.
Option (2) Growing focus on environmental issues within the global politics — Correct. The growing focus on environmental issues within the arena of global politics was firmly consolidated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, also called the Earth Summit.
Option (3) Growing resource constraints — Incorrect. The depletion of resources is what Limits to Growth dramatised in 1972; it is not what the 1992 conference consolidated.
Option (4) Increasing desalination of the sea — Incorrect. Desalination means removing salt from sea water to make it fit for drinking or farming. It has nothing to do with the 1992 conference, which consolidated the focus on environmental issues in global politics.
Note: The concept in Option (4), ‘desalination’, is not in NCERT (2025-26); explained here for the benefit of the students.
NCERT (2025-26): “Environmental Concerns in Global Politics … International agencies, including the 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, the environment has emerged as a significant issue of global politics. The growing focus on environmental issues within the arena of global politics was firmly consolidated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992. This was also called the Earth Summit.…” |