United Nations Division for Sustainable Development
The United Nations Division for Sustainable Development (DSD) is an agency established in 1992, tasked with supporting and implementing sustainable development initiatives as outlined by the United Nations’ Commission on Sustainable Development. This initiative emerged from the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, adopted at the Earth Summit in 1992. The DSD plays a critical role in fostering collaboration among various UN entities and encouraging global cooperation to address sustainable development challenges, particularly in the context of climate change and natural resource management.
Although the DSD does not possess the power to enforce actions among member states or organizations, it actively facilitates changes by securing funding for pilot projects, conducting research, and providing educational resources. A significant focus of the DSD includes developing strategies to mitigate the impacts of climate change, including global warming and desertification, especially for vulnerable regions like Small Island Developing States. The DSD's efforts are guided by foundational documents such as Agenda 21, which outlines sustainable management principles, including a dedicated focus on atmospheric protection.
The DSD highlights the importance of sustainable economic development that does not compromise environmental integrity, advocating for the transition to alternative energy sources. Recent reports underscore the urgency of achieving Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 while addressing the increasing challenges of poverty and hunger exacerbated by global conflicts and other crises. Overall, the DSD serves as a vital platform for enhancing understanding and actionable strategies toward sustainable development worldwide.
United Nations Division for Sustainable Development
DATE: Established 1992
Mission
An agency of the United Nations, the Division for Sustainable Development supports and helps implement programs of the Commission on Sustainable Development. The commission and division were created by the General Assembly of the United Nations to carry out the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, which was adopted at the Earth Summit held in June 1992. Climate change is one of the areas specifically assigned to this organization as part of its responsibilities in natural resources management.
The Division for Sustainable Development (DSD) has the mission of enabling economic development in such a manner that it not only works in the present but also will be viable in the foreseeable future. The DSD is to provide assistance and information to all organizations seeking to implement sustainable development. This includes research to define what are central factors preventing sustainable development as well as seeking solutions to overcome these factors. It seeks to work with other groups within the United Nations, as well as encouraging regional and global cooperation to implement successful patterns of sustainable development.
The DSD does not have the power to mandate actions by the members of the United Nations, Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), or citizens of any country. However, it does work to facilitate changes in the way economic development is implemented. It does this through securing funding for pilot projects, research, and educational efforts. The basic document defining the mission of the DSD, as the staff for the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), is Agenda 21. Agenda 21 was adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The 1992 document is composed of the Rio Declaration and the Statement of Principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests. The main section focusing on climatic issues is chapter 9, “Protection of the Atmosphere.” In 2002, a meeting was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, to evaluate what progress had been made toward reaching the goals of Agenda 21 and what obstacles were preventing positive movement on the issues. This meeting adopted the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, which contains specific steps to be taken toward the goals.
As the portion of the UN secretariat charged with fulfilling the implementation plan, the DSD works with a wide variety of organizations to move toward the goal of sustainable development. Climate change, including global warming and desertification, is an area of special focus. The DSD also works with the Small Island Developing States network, a special work group established in 1997 because of the special vulnerability of small islands to any rise in ocean levels. Such a sea-level rise could occur if global warming causes the melting of the polar ice caps.
Significance for Climate Change
Development is not sustainable if it creates climatic or other environmental changes that interfere with the continuation of proposed economic enterprises. It is for this reason that diligent research is undertaken on all development proposals to discern if any factor of a proposal might increase any type of pollution. The DSD has accepted a finding by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that it is more than 90 percent likely that the current fossil-fuel-based energy system emits greenhouse gases (GHGs) that cause global warming.
While recognizing that will remain part of the energy system in the short run, the DSD seeks the means to move to alternative sources of energy as rapidly as possible. An example of this program is the electrification of rural areas of Kiribati. These areas are not connected to the urban electrical grid, which relies mainly on imported fossil fuels. Instead, a DSD-sponsored pilot project installed solar panels and batteries on private houses to power electric lights. The project proved the practicality and reliability of such systems in relatively isolated areas, as well as investigating the minimum number of panels and batteries needed in an area to allow an economically feasible support structure to operate. Providing the support structure also made it possible for individuals to consider adding more solar panels to power refrigeration and other applications.
In its "Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024," the DSD continued to stress the importance of all nations achieving these goals by the 2030 deadline. It noted that in addition to those counted in its 2019 report, an additional 23 million people throughout the world became impoverished, and more than 100 million suffered from hunger in 2022. The report also addressed the effects of wars, such as creating large numbers of refugees.
Bibliography
Boyle, Alan E., and David Freestone, eds. International Law and Sustainable Development: Past Achievements and Future Challenges. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Robinson, Nicholas A. Strategies Toward Sustainable Development: Implementing Agenda 21. New York: Oceana, 2005.
Sorooshian, Shahryar. "The Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations: A Comparative Midterm Research Review." Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 450, 10 May 2024, doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.142272. Accessed 12 Dec. 2024.
"The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024." United Nations,unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2024/The-Sustainable-Development-Goals-Report-2024.pdf. Accessed 19 Dec. 2024.
World Bank. Office of the Publisher, ed. Five Years After Rio: Innovations in Environmental Policy. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1997.