Fifty years after the first UN Environmental Conference in Stockholm, the Swedish capital is once again hosting an international meeting on pressing climate topics.
The two-day Stockholm+50 conference got underway on Thursday.
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Among those attending are the UN General Secretary, António Guterres, several government leaders, dozens of ministers, and numerous climate and environmental activists.
Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf greeted delegations from around the world in an opening speech in which he looked back on the “historic” first conference in Stockholm in 1972.
He said “we have come a long way since then but let me be clear now. We do not have 50 more years to turn the development around.”
Gustaf, who warned of the climate crisis, added that “if we want to limit global warming, the next few years are critical.”
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Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said the meeting will not set new goals because the world has already set itself very ambitious targets, “instead,
the conference will look at ways of how to reach existing goals more quickly and efficiently.”
Stockholm was the venue of the first UN conference to deal with questions about the environment in 1972.
It was also the occasion of the founding of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
Subsequently, governments around the world established environment ministries and many global treaties on environmental protection have been signed since.
