UPPSC 2020 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 13 of 150

Correct — B, Our Common Future. In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, submitted its report 'Our Common Future' (the Brundtland Report) to the United Nations. It popularised the term 'sustainable development' and its classic definition — meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs — launching the global debate the question describes.

• (a)First Report on Climate Change — Not a real 1987 UN report on sustainable development. Global climate assessments came from the IPCC, whose First Assessment Report appeared in 1990 — a different body and a different theme.
• (c)Second Report on Climate Change — Again an IPCC-style climate assessment (the Second Assessment Report was 1995), not the 1987 report that introduced sustainable development.
• (d)Fifth Assessment Report — The IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) was released in 2013–14 and deals with climate-change science — decades after 1987 and unrelated to the origin of 'sustainable development'.

The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) was set up by the UN in 1983 under Gro Harlem Brundtland, then Prime Minister of Norway. Its 1987 report 'Our Common Future' coined the widely used definition of sustainable development and set the agenda for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Sustainability rests on three pillars — economic, social and environmental — later operationalised through the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (2015).

Two keywords fix the answer: the year 1987 and 'report on environment to the UN'. Both point to the Brundtland Report / Our Common Future. The distractors bait students who associate any global environmental report with the IPCC's climate 'assessment reports', which are a separate track and came later.

• Report: 'Our Common Future' (the Brundtland Report), 1987.
• Produced by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED).
• Chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, PM of Norway.
• Defined sustainable development; led to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

• Confusing the 1987 Brundtland Report with the IPCC's climate 'assessment reports'
• Mixing up the 1987 report with the SDGs (2015) or the MDGs (2000)

Both UPPSC and UPSC ask this as a one-liner ('which 1987 report...') or quote the Brundtland definition and link it to carrying capacity and the SDGs.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The 1987 report 'Our Common Future' was produced by a commission chaired by:

  • (a)Rachel Carson
  • (b)Gro Harlem Brundtland
  • (c)Maurice Strong
  • (d)Wangari Maathai

  Answer(b) Gro Harlem Brundtland — hence it is also called the Brundtland Report.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Brundtland Report's definition of sustainable development directly led to which 1992 event?

  • (a)Stockholm Conference
  • (b)Kyoto Protocol
  • (c)Rio Earth Summit (UNCED)
  • (d)Paris Agreement

  Answer(c) Rio Earth Summit (UNCED), 1992.