If the internet were a state, it would be the sixth largest consumer of energy and the seventh largest emitter of CO2 on the planet. Facing an ongoing climate change emergency, the collapse of biodiversity, and the depletion of resources, everyone must rethink their models. Within such a perspective, digital technology becomes much more than a technical tool as it allows us to develop new ways of working, of obtaining information, of acting and making new forms of mobilization, collaboration, and sharing possible. Facing such a major challenge, states have begun to mobilise their diplomatic efforts in the service of an ecological and social transition. But under what conditions? This chapter sheds light upon how multilateral environmental agreements seek to find a solution towards maintaining sustainable development and foreseeing a resource efficient economy.
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Sustainable development requires a balance between social, environmental, and economic concerns. Daron Acemoğlu
Sustainable Development is perhaps the most pressing challenge facing the world in the 21st century. It is a global problem. It affects all humans living on the planet. The very poorest global citizens face death if they cannot find safe shelter, clean water and food. The many who are slightly better off are fearful of the future awaiting their children and are in search of better health care. Those who live in the industrialised countries want to maintain and increase their standards of living. The most well-off benefitting the utmost the planet has to offer fear their prominence ending and wish to expand their riches. Thus, every individual is looking for answers to the challenges they face whether it be finding drinkable water or finding cheaper jet fuel for their private plane. The one fact that everyone faces is that there are finite resources on our planet.
In its advisory opinion in 1996, delivered at the request of the United Nations General Assembly, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared that the environment was threatened on a daily basis which was not an abstraction, but rather the space where human beings live and on which the quality of their life and their health depended on. This also encompassed future generations. Through this famous formula, the ICJ reaffirmed the need to protect the environment for the future generations. This concern is not new. It had been highlighted since the Stockholm Conference in June 1972.
For the first time, the Stockholm Conference addressed a reflection on the interactions between economic development and the environment. The concept of “ecodevelopment” is emerging, linking social, ecological prudence and economic efficiency and favouring humans and knowledge sharing. It led to adopting the Stockholm Declaration, containing 26 principles of action, and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) creation. The human right to the environment, a fundamental right, is expressly affirmed in principle 1: Man has a fundamental right to freedom, equality and satisfactory living conditions, in an environment whose quality allows him to live in dignity and well-being. He has a solemn duty to protect the environment for present and future generations (Rodriguez-Rivera, 2018). This right to the environment was reaffirmed in Article 24 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights of 1981, in Nairobi, in Article 1 of the Rio Declaration, and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Of the major environmental problems involved, indisputably “global warming”, that is to say, global warming, which is the environmental scourge that worries and mobilizes the international community the most. We are now talking about climate change, and despite this general mobilization, the stakes remain considerable for states faced with a dilemma between national interest and the implementation of a real climate risk management policy, which is the whole point.