The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, through paragraph 31 โcalls for the widest possible international cooperation aimed at accelerating the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions and addressing adaptation to theย adverse impacts of climate changeโ.
Prior to the 2030 Agenda and the Future We Want, paragraph 38 under Chapter IV- โProtecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social developmentโ of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation expresses the concern of Member States for the changes occurred in the Earthโs climate and the adverse effects that these changes have on humankind.
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The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) fourth session in 1996 held substantive discussions on protection of the atmosphere. CSD fourteenth session in 2006 and fifteenth session in 2007 focused on a cluster of thematic issues, including atmosphere and air pollution.
Protection of the atmosphere is a broad and multidimensional endeavour involving various sectors of economic activity.
Many of the issues discussed in Chapter 9 of Agenda 21, on “Protection of the Atmosphere,” are also addressed in such international agreements as the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer as amended, the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and other international, including regional, instruments.
Agenda 21 notes, however, that activities that may be undertaken in pursuit of the objectives of this chapter should be co-ordinated with social and economic development in an integrated manner with a view to avoiding adverse impacts on the latter, taking into full account the legitimate priority needs of developing countries for the achievement of sustained economic growth and the eradication of poverty.
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