A letter to fellow citizens of Earth
Stockholm+50 is an intergovernmental summit on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which laid the foundation of international environmental governance and recognized the strong linkages between environment and people.
Our home, planet Earth, is in jeopardy. Earth provides us with sustenance and shelter, inspires reverence, and nurtures our dreams. But we are pushing the planet’s systems to the edge, threatening our own well-being and that of future generations.
In 1970, the Menton Message, was crafted in Menton, France during an environmental conference organized by Alfred Hassler of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and other leading intellectuals and scientists, Thich Nhat Hanh and Sister Chan Khong. The conference produced a statement to “Our 3.5 billion neighbours”, published in the UNESCO Courier in 1971, and eventually signed and presented by 2200 scientists as a letter alongside the U.N. Summit on the Human Environment in Stockholm.
In 2022, fifty years on from the UN Summit, the International Science Council, Future Earth and the Stockholm Environment Institute convened an Expert Writing Group of natural scientists, social scientists and humanities scholars to modernize and extend the historical call on the eve of Stockholm+50.
This is their letter.
We, the writers of this letter, are natural scientists, engineers, social scientists and scholars from many disciplines and countries. We see the evidence of global environmental change, assess its impacts, untangle its causes, and see the connections between our social and environmental challenges.
We humans are ultimately responsible for the crisis, but to varying degrees: a minority are responsible for a majority of the damage, while those least responsible are hit hardest by the impacts.
This letter is an urgent call to our global neighbours, to acknowledge the crisis, make personal and collective commitments in line with differences in privilege and responsibility, and work towards transformative change.
Stockholm+50 is an intergovernmental summit on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which laid the foundation of international environmental governance and recognized the strong linkages between environment and people.
The Government of Sweden along with the Government of Kenya are hosting the high-level international meeting to commemorate this anniversary under the theme “Stockholm+50: A healthy planet for the prosperity of all – our responsibility, our opportunity”. The aim is to contribute to accelerating a transformation that leads to sustainable and green economies, more jobs, and a healthy planet for all, where no one is left behind.
Recognizing the interconnections between humans and nature, Stockholm+50 is an occasion to raise awareness about the importance of protecting our planet. It sets a path for us to overcome the triple planetary crisis of climate change, of nature and biodiversity loss, and of pollution and waste.
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