The United Nations agency tasked with promoting industrial development has published the first in a series of books focusing on "green" economic growth, which entails a low-carbon, resource-efficient approach to sustainable development, while combating climate change and conserving biodiversity. The volumes are intended to give practical expression to the concept of sustainable development adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in a press release Tuesday.

At the Earth Summit – unprecedented for a UN conference in terms of both its size and the scope of its concerns – the UN sought to help governments rethink economic development and find ways to halt the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources and pollution of the planet.

"The Road to Rio+20" features 14 articles aimed at highlighting critical topics and stimulate global discussion ahead of next year's UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, also known as Rio+20. That conference's main theme will be "green economy" in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.

The first volume includes lead articles by the Director of the Earth Institute and Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Jeffrey Sachs; ecological economist and Professor Emeritus of the University of Maryland, Herman Daly; and the Senior Vice President and Head of the UN Foundation's International Bioenergy and Sustainability Initiatives, Melinda Kimble.

The volume also tackles such topics as how the transition to low-carbon economic growth can be financed, especially for the world's poorer countries; how useful technology can be funded, developed, and shared; and how global trade regimes and rules can be adjusted to support and nurture developing-country exporters of green products and services, including environmentally friendly agricultural goods and renewable energy.

Each future volume will have a chapter focusing on the programs and policies of a specific sector of the economy.

UNCTAD is carrying out an analysis of steps taken by governments in the fields of trade, investment, and development that have successfully spurred green economic growth. The results of that analysis and recommendations for future action will be unveiled at the Rio+20 conference in early June 2012.