The 2022 Stockholm+50 Moment in the Era of a Planetary Crisis: Some Lessons for the Scholars and the Decision-makers

Abstract

The Stockholm+50 Conference (2-3 June 2022) has been perceived as a low-key affair and a missed opportunity. The moral halo that ushered the world into global environmental consciousness, led by the Prime Ministers of Sweden (Olof Palme) and India (Indira Gandhi) at the first UN Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) held in Stockholm (5–16 June 1972) seemed to be missing at the 2022 Stockholm+50 Conference. This historic event coincided with the 30th anniversary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Stockholm+50 event, jointly hosted by Sweden and Kenya, ended as a ubiquitous joint Presidents’ Final Remarks to the Plenary issued by the two host countries. In spite of the call for action by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to address the “triple planetary crisis” driven by climate emergency, biodiversity loss and pollution and waste, the Stockholm+50 outcome took the shape of ten-point summarized recommendations. It didn’t cause any ripples or resulted in a clarion call that could shake the conscience of peoples and nations to arise for everting the existential planetary crisis. The 2022 Stockholm+50 Moment at best remained a timid acknowledgement of things going terribly wrong in the past fifty years (1972–2022). Yet, no world leader stepped forward to don the mantle “to rescue” the world from the “environmental mess” as urged by the UNSG in his 2 June 2022 inaugural address. The heads of government and delegations seemed to lack the requisite courage befitting the momentous occasion for a decisive course correction in the global environmental regulatory policies, legal instruments and the environmental governance architecture. What would it entail to address the planetary crisis? It brings to the fore some lessons from the 2022 Stockholm+50 Moment that presents an ideational challenge for scholars of International Law and International Relations as well as the UN system, multilateral environmental treaty processes, international institutions and the decision-makers of the sovereign states.