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Brasil
PackTrends
2020
175
sustainability & 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