| carrying capacity | The number of people that an environment, such as Earth, can feed, provide water for, and otherwise sustain.
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| sustainable development | The ability to continue to improve the quality of life of those in the industrialized countries and, particularly, those in the less developed countries while simultaneously protecting Earth's biosphere.
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| UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) | Often called Earth Summit I or the Rio Conference, this gathering in 1992 was the first to bring together most of the world's countries, a majority of which were represented by their head of state or government, to address the range of issues associated with sustainable development.
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| UN Conference on Population and Development (UNCPD) | A UN-sponsored conference that met in Cairo, Egypt, in September 1994 and was attended by delegates from more than 170 countries. The conference called for a program of action to include spending $17 billion annually by the year 2000 on international, national, and local programs to foster family planning and to improve the access of women in such areas as education.
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| World Health Organization (WHO) | A UN-affiliated organization created in 1946 to address world health issues.
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| World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) | Often called Earth Summit II, this conference was held in Johannesburg in 2002. It was attended by almost all countries and by some 8,000 NGOs, and it established a series of calls for action and timetables for ameliorating various problems.
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