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Another important feature of the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable
Development is the use of concepts related to the social state, such as
solidarity, human dignity, building a global community, and the creation of
income-enhancing employment opportunities, alongside the concept of
sustainable development (Boyar 2020:1936). Moreover, the role of the private
sector in sustainable development was emphasized for the first time with
this declaration (Boyar 2020:1936) and social, economic and environmental
problems such as food security, desertification, HIV/AIDS were highlighted
as a consequence of the Summit being held in Africa (Skalar 2015:59). Finally,
although the countries have not agreed on a common point about the
transition to renewable energy, they have reached a consensus on adopting
green energy and not supporting the energy varieties incompatible with
sustainable development (Kaya and Ek 2021:82).
d. Rio 20+ United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also called
Rio+20, is the largest environmental event of the United Nations until the
day it organized, with the participation of a total of 45,381 people, consisting
of 12 thousand delegates from 188 countries and about 10 thousand civil
society representatives and more than 4 thousand journalists, which was
held on June 20-22, 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, 20 years after the United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development, also known as Rio Conference
or the Earth Summit held in June 1992 in the same city (Güneş 2021: 336).
Though the Rio+20 Summit was criticized by activists through the draft of
the final declaration for making efforts to protect multinational companies
(Bahçeci 2016); it focuses on issues such as shifting to a green economy to
eradicate poverty, improving international cooperation to ensure sustainable
development, moving sustainable development to the future, as well as
addressed the energy, employment, sustainable cities, food and water access,
oceans and disasters, on the basis of the sustainable development principle
(Özkan 2016:45; Yıldırım and Nuri 2018:13).
Following the Summit, a Final Declaration
named The Future We Want was released, which is regarded as a guide
for the countries to achieve sustainable development (Langlois et al. 2012)
and consists of six sections including, (i) our common vision, (ii) renewing
political commitment, (iii) green economy in the context of sustainable
development and poverty eradication, (iv) institutional framework of
sustainable development, (v) Framework for action and follow-up and (vi)
means of implementation (Güneş 2021:336-337). While continuing the
approach in the Brundtland Report on sustainable development, the Final
Declaration emphasized the goal of placing the human beings at the center of

48 Journal of Environment, Urbanization and Climate