Brasil Pack Trends 2020

BrasilPackTrends2020 175 sustainabi l ity & ethics 7.1 ENVIRONMENT: A GLOBAL ISSUE The recent invasion of environmental issues in the media, as well as the involvement of countries around the world including many people, from scientists to politicians, famous actors to children of different nationalities, has shown the degree of penetration of this topic in the life of the common citizen. If, in the scientific community, environmental issues have been discussed since the 1950s, and have gradually gained importance, currently, the relationship between modern life and the environment are inserted even in primary school books. This penetration has occurred by a combination of several factors. From this perspective, globalization, which has been intensified from the second half of the ‘80s, has transformed the environmental discussions from national to global. The social- related aspects are referring to global society and not only the regionalized effects. Many agents, such as transnational corporations, non-governmental organizations, epistemic communities and the media have begun to have strong influence in decision making. Through globalization, humanity becomes aware of the risk of environmental degradation due to the potential destructive capacity of nuclear plants and contamination of air, water, soil and the food chain by chemical industries (VIOLA, 1998; CAYE, 2010; SILVA, 2009). The 1972 Stockholm Declaration, concerning the human environment, had its importance because it is characterized as the first document in which the protection and the improvement of the human environment were treated as fundamental issues of interest and the duty of all governments, because they affect the well-being of peoples and economic development worldwide (UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE, 1972). Many international agreements have been settled, in which three main objectives can be observed: to protect the ozone layer, to reduce the effects of climate change and to protect biodiversity. The Vienna Convention (1985) resulted from the concern for protecting the ozone layer, responsible for the filtration of solar radiation in the ultraviolet range, particularly harmful to human health. This was followed by the adoption of the Montreal Protocol, in 1987, which controls the production and the consumption of substances that, due to their reactivity combined with their market volumes, have high potential to destroy the ozone layer, such as “chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs (-11, -12, -13, -C14, -15)”, halons (-1211, -1301 and -2402), HCFCs andmethyl bromide. These actions have resulted in significant reduction of those gas emissions and are considered examples of successful policies of prevention and precaution to mitigate global climatic problems (UNEP, 1992; SILVA, 2009; CAYE, 2010). The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), resulting from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development – UNCED (Rio, 1992) had a crucial impact on environmental awareness and the need for biological diversity protection. Signed by 168 countries and ratified by 188, it is considered a political landmark concerning issues related to biodiversity (MINISTRY OF EXTERNAL RELATION/ MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT, 2012). In 1998, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Composed of thousands of scientists around the world, the IPCC is an international organism which reviews and evaluates the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information produced in the world, which are relevant for the understanding of climate change. Since its creation, it has published four major assessment Climate change