Fifty years after the first UN environmental conference in Stockholm, the Swedish capital is once again hosting an international meeting on pressing climate topics, as the two-day Stockholm+50 conference got under way on Thursday, transmits news agency MIA.
Among those attending are UN General Secretary António Guterres, a number of government leaders, dozens of ministers, and numerous climate and environmental activists. Sweden‘s King Carl XVI Gustaf greeted delegations from around the world in an opening speech in which he looked back on the “historic” first environmental conference in Stockholm in 1972.
“We have come a long way since then. But let me be clear: We do not have 50 more years to turn the development around,” Carl Gustaf warned of the climate crisis.
“If we want to limit global warming, the next few years are critical,” he continued, setting the tone for what will be the most important topic of the conference: how to speed up the fight against global warming, species extinction, and pollution.
Under the motto “A healthy planet for the prosperity of all – our responsibility, our opportunity,” the conference will seek to boost the implementation existing climate treaties such as the UN sustainable development goals and the Paris Agreement. New concrete agreements and decisions are, however, not expected to be made.
“This is not a meeting that will set new goals because the world has already set itself very ambitious targets,” said Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. Instead, the conference will look at ways of how to reach existing goals more quickly and efficiently, Andersson said. Stockholm was the site of the first UN conference to deal with questions about the environment, in 1972.
It was also the occasion of the founding of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Subsequently, governments around the world established environmental ministries, and many global treaties on environmental protection have been signed off since.
