Page 64 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 3

Sustainable Development in International Environmental Law

sustainable development, linking the poverty with sustainable development,
and eradicating the poverty. In addition, the report is of great importance
in terms of raising the level of political commitment to carry the sustainable
development approach to the future by achieving internationally agreed
development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals adopted
at the United Nations General Assembly in 2000, referring to the principle
of common but differentiated responsibilities and frequently addressing the
concept of green economy (Güneş 2021:337; Skalar 2015:61; Yıldırım and Nuri
2018:13-14). Furthermore, as a result of complaints from developing countries
that no financial and technical assistance was provided to them in their
transition to a green economy, other issues achieved by the Summit include
the merging of “technical and technological assistance” to paragraph 74 of
the Final Declaration, establishing a “universal intergovernmental high-level
political forum” instead of Commission on Sustainable Development and
the resolutions on strengthening the United Nations Environment Program
(UNEP) (Skalar 2015:62-63; Yıldırım and Nuri 2018:14).
However, in the Final Declaration; this concept was criticized for being a
product of neoliberal economic approach rather than being environmentalist
due to the lack of definition of this concept despite the Declaration often
addresses the green economy (Özkan 2016:46). In addition, the Summit was
also criticised for failing to adopt the principle of common but differentiated
responsibilities as a guiding principle of the green economy as a result of
the objections of the United States and certain developed countries (Skalar
2015:62) and for failing to take binding decisions at the end of the Summit
(Güneş 2021:337).

e. Agenda 2030
Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
or often called as Agenda 2030 was adopted by 193 countries at the end of
the United Nations Summit of Sustainable Development held on November
15-16, 2015 (Yıldırım and Nuri 2018:15; Güneş 2021:337).

Agenda 2030 Declaration, which will be applicable until 2030 and replaces
or revises the Millenium Development Goals (Klarin 2018:86; Gedik 2020:202;
Güneş 2021:338) consists of 169 targets including global partnership structure,
follow-up issues and 17 sustainable development goals such as “no poverty”,
“zero hunger”, “good health and well-being”, “quality education”, “gender
equality”, “clean water and sanitation”, “affordable and clean energy”,
“decent work and economic growth”, “industry, innovation and infrastructure”,
“reduced inequalities”, “sustainable cities and communities”, “responsible
consumption and production”, “climate action”, “life below water”, “life

Year 2 / Issue 3 / January 2023 49