Still One Earth: environmental risks, nuclear threats and the 1972 Stockholm Conference

The 1972 Stockholm Conference framed environmental degradation and nuclear threats as parallel existential dangers, yet these two policy trajectories diverged in the following decades. While environmental governance expanded rapidly, nuclear disarmament faded from the environmental agenda. The author argues that in the Anthropocene, interlocking risks—such as the geopolitical competition for critical minerals needed for green energy—require a 'single security space' approach that reintegrates peace, development, and environmental protection.

• The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) integrated environmental protection and nuclear disarmament into a single framework for human survival, with the Stockholm Declaration explicitly calling for the total abolition of nuclear weapons.
• The Stockholm Conference emerged from a strategic effort by Swedish diplomats to broaden a proposed meeting on nuclear energy into a comprehensive conference on the global environment, driven by scientific evidence of transboundary pollution like the acidification of Swedish lakes.
• Following 1972, environmental and nuclear policies diverged; while the number of governmental environmental agencies grew tenfold in a decade, nuclear disarmament disappeared from subsequent landmark environmental summits including the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, and Rio+20.
• The author identifies a 'single security space' in the 21st century where Anthropocene risks to peace, environment, and development are interlocking, meaning disruptions in one sphere can cascade across others to create global problems.
• Modern efforts to transition to green economies may create new 'security dilemmas', such as geopolitical competition and instability in conflict-affected states over the critical minerals required for renewable energy technologies.
• Environmental conservation measures, such as the goal to protect 30% of global land and ocean by 2030, risk causing 'fortress conservation' where local populations are violently or militarizedly excluded from their lands.

APA

Michel, D. (2022). Still One Earth: environmental risks, nuclear threats and the 1972 Stockholm Conference. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/still-one-earth-stockholm50backgroundpaper.pdf

Chicago

Michel, David. Still One Earth: environmental risks, nuclear threats and the 1972 Stockholm Conference. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2022. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/still-one-earth-stockholm50backgroundpaper.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Michel |first1=David |title=Still One Earth: environmental risks, nuclear threats and the 1972 Stockholm Conference |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=May 2022 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/still-one-earth-stockholm50backgroundpaper.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{michel2022still, author = {Michel, David}, title = {{Still One Earth: environmental risks, nuclear threats and the 1972 Stockholm Conference}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2022}, month = may, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/still-one-earth-stockholm50backgroundpaper.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }