The first United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Rio Earth Summit (Cúpula da Terra) or Eco 92, took place in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to 14, 1992. With over 150 nations in attendance, the Earth Summit promoted the idea of sustainable development as the best means of addressing the fundamental connections between the problems of economic development and environmental protection. At its conclusion, the Rio Earth Summit produced five major international agreements: the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, the Statement of Principles for a Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development of all Types of Forests, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992), the Convention on Biological Diversity, and Agenda 21.

As a global political event, the Rio Earth Summit held a delicate balance between countries with vastly differing realities. Hosted in a country that had struggled so persistently to develop a stable national economy, the Rio Summit made clear that the most salient issues facing people in many of the world's developing nations, like Brazil, were those of subsistence, such as access to food, shelter, water, and protection from hazardous waste. On the other hand, for the world's most economically successful countries, such as the United States and much of Europe, the Earth Summit represented a reckoning with their outsized roles in contributing to climate change. In the end, the Rio Earth Summit aimed to establish common goals of environmental protection with differentiated responsibilities for its fulfillment.

While considered groundbreaking in the scope and magnitude of its policies, the legacy of the Rio Earth Summit has garnered mixed judgments. With the growth of the economies of countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, collectively known as BRICS, the argument that industrialized countries were more responsible for carbon emissions has weakened as the emission levels of late industrializing countries, like China, have caught up with early industrializing countries. Thus, some argue that differentiating these late industrializers’ responsibility for climate change mitigation from that of advanced countries like the United States has become less appropriate. Instead, these critics have pushed for equal, rather than differentiated, responsibility for climate action across nations. Others question the larger impact of the agreements made at the landmark conference. While the conference asserted a level of unity among developing nations like Brazil that may have represented a point of strength at the time, the agreements it produced have done little to force compliance from powerful countries like the United States.

Key events

• United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992 : Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Key subjects

• BRIC countries--Environmental conditions
• BRIC countries--Foreign economic relations
• Convention on Biological Diversity (1992)
• Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
• Sustainable development--Brazil
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992)