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The Earth Summit

United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
Rio de Janeiro, 1992

Check the Brief Introduction

The cycle of UN Summits and Conferences started with the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. This Conference became known as the Earth Summit.
In Rio, Governments adopted several major agreements aimed at changing the traditional approach to development:

To follow-up the progress of implementing the agreements made in Rio, the Commission on Sustainable Development was founded which meets every year. In addition, every five years, there would be a Special Session of the UN General Assembly to review the progress.
In its 19th Special Session, the UN General Assembly met in New York in 1997 to review the progress. This meeting became known as Earth Summit II.