ABSTRACT
In 1992 the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNGED) took place in Rio de Janeiro. This chapter traces the recent history of international environmental policy before and after the 'Earth Summit'. It examines the tortuous trail by which the environment and development came to be considered together. Within the narrative we can discern issues in the sociology of ideas, and in science policy, that have frequently been eclipsed by events. The economic policies of the 1980s - the 'adjustment decade' -were rarely linked to the course of international environmental policy. Development aid was only belatedly linked to environmental goals. 'Green conditionality', itself a burden for the South, was, I shall argue, an attempt to force a late marriage between development and environmental objectives.
