The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) brought together almost every country in the world in an effort to have the global community commit itself to the goal of sustainable development. Among its major achievements was Agenda 21, an ambitious plan of action on 39 environment and development issues. The United Nations subsequently created the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) to monitor progress towards achievement of UNCED's goals. This report of Canada to the CSD summarizes the progress, lessons learned, and challenges in achieving the goals of sustainable development. It concentrates on the chapters and themes in Agenda 21 that will be discussed at the next session of the CSD. It attempts to isolate the major trends and themes in Canadian responses to each of those chapters. It also includes short summaries of recent developments in topics related to the sectoral chapters discussed during the latest session of the CSD.
One of the more significant recommendations to emerge from UNCED in 1992 was the call in Agenda 21 for countries to develop and implement national sustainable development strategies. Most countries have responded to this challenge. However many countries also have a long history of drawing up planning exercises at this level to deal with environmental problems. 'Green planning' is now used as a shorthand term for a range of such national-level planning initiatives covering both sustainable development and environmental concerns, and countries from the North and the South can benefit from a pooling of knowledge. Getting to Grips with Greens Plans presents a cogent analysis of industrial countries' experiences in this area, drawing out lessons and observations from broad empirical experience. Part 1 provides an overview of national green planning, reviewing its origins and scope, identifying popular approaches and common processes, highlighting important issues such as participation, the influence of domestic politics, and the track record of more ambitious regional plans, and comparing approaches in developed and developing countries. Part 2 goes on to present a series of detailed case studies, drawn largely from interviews with key individuals responsible for coordinating national green planning processes. These cases come from a range of Western and Eastern European countries, the US and Canada, and Australia and New Zealand. Some of these case studies show impressive records of achievement, whilst others demonstrate potential stumbling blocks. All demonstrate the difficulty of putting the concept of sustainable development into practice Barry Dalal-Clayton is director of the Environmental Planning Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development, London. In recent years, Dr Dalal Clayton has been deeply involved in analyzing approaches to national sustainable development strategies and environmental action plans in many countries, and in advising governments and international agencies in this field. His other current research interests include environmental impact assessment, community-based wildlife management and land use planning. Originally published in 1996
An indexing, abstracting and document delivery service that covers current Canadian report literature of reference value from government and institutional sources.
The purpose of this report is to identify and describe important trends in Canada over the last quarter century, which taken together provide a snapshot of Canada's progress toward sustainable development. Details on issues and specific initiatives can be found in the list of selected readings at the end. This report is not a comprehensive scorecard. Rather, it is intended to illustrate how conditions in Canada have changed, to demonstrate how issues, priorities, thinking, and responses have evolved during a dynamic quarter century, and to highlight challenges that remain in our quest for a sustainable future.
Citizens of industrialized countries largely share a sense that their national governance is inadequate, believing not only that governments are incapable of making the right policy decisions, but also that the entire network of state and civil society actors responsible for the discussion, negotiation and implementation of policy choices is untrustworthy. Using agro-environmental policy development in France, the United States, and Canada as a case study, Eric Montpetit sets out to investigate the validity of citizens' mistrust through careful attention to the policy-making performance of the relevant policy networks. He concludes that distrust in policy networks is, for the most part, misplaced because high levels of performance by policy networks are more common than citizens appear to expect. Moreover, his analysis reveals that policy networks providing for a participation in governance to powerful interest groups and strong government bureaucracies are more likely to succeed in producing sound environmental policies for agriculture. A timely and crucial contribution to the good governance debate, this book should be required reading for policy-makers and politicians, as well as students and scholars of public policy, political science, environmental studies, and government.
