Things tend to repeat themselves, I think.
For more than 30 years ago. We experienced an energy crisis. The oil producing countries threatened to stop the oil production. We got the first reports about the decreasing oil resources. I remember the prognosis that the oil would last for 30 years more. Now we are more convinced that we have reached the peak of oil production. One should always take those more exact figures in prognosis and such with some scepticism. I remember the year because I took my driver license that year and got ration card for petrol. At that time in 1973, one year after the Stockholm Environment Conference, one talked about to have a basic ecological outlook. Each municipality in Sweden ought to have an ecologist hired for the planning department. The Bruntland commission, formally the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), came with the “Sustainable development” or “Our common future” report in 1987. After the Rio Conference in 1992, we spoke about having an Agenda 21 in each society. Then had the Aalborg + 10 in June 2004 with adoption of the Aalborg commitments. So far over 340 local governments have signed the commitment. There will be a follow up in Sevilla in 21-24 of March 2007 www.sevilla2007.org .

The conferences tend to carry on at the world level and that’s good. I think our environmental minister will call all environmental ministers for a meeting In Sweden next summer to discuss the climate changes for instance. We deal with new expressions and new details about the environment and of course some good things come out of the conferences. Perhaps not that much as one wished although. Most of the declarations stay as words only. The policies and declarations tend to become more and more complicated like the legislation. Hopefully we learn from history and become wiser as time goes by and see new possibilities in getting a more sustainable development. It’s really a challenge to realize the great declarations on the global or national level at the local level in communication with the public.