Looking Through Palme’s Vision for the Global Environment

Issue title: Our Earth Matters: Pathways to a Better Common Environmental Future – Part 2

Guest editors: Bharat H. Desai

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Sundström, Anna^{; *}

Affiliations: Secretary General, Olof Palme International Centre, Stockholm, Sweden

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author. E-mail: anna.sundstrom@palmecenter.se.

Abstract: Olof Palme, the former Prime Minister of Sweden, underlined the importance of a firm global response to the growing environmental crisis in his 06 June 1972 address to the first UN Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) held in Stockholm. He prophetically observed: “it is absolutely necessary that concerted, international action is undertaken . . . solutions will require far-reaching changes in attitudes and social structures”. Almost 50 years later, it is painfully clear that the necessary changes have not taken place and that time is now even more limited to make the necessary, far-reaching changes. How can the conclusions from the Stockholm Conference and ideas envisioned by Olof Palme can guide us into a better common greener future?

Keywords: Stockholm conference, stockholm + 50, olof palme’s vision, changes in attitudes and social structures, global environment

DOI: 10.3233/EPL-219009

Journal: Environmental Policy and Law, vol. 51, no. 1-2, pp. 83-90, 2021