Consider the following statements:
- 1.The Sustainable Development Goals were first proposed in 1972 by a global think tank called the 'Club of Rome'.
- 2.The Sustainable Development Goals have to be achieved by 2030.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer & explanation
Answer: (b) 2 only
Statement 2 is correct and statement 1 is wrong. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are part of the UN's 2030 Agenda, adopted in 2015 and to be achieved by 2030, and the UN decided to develop them at the Rio+20 conference in 2012. The Club of Rome's 1972 contribution was a book, Limits to Growth.
- ✗ 1. The idea of SDGs was launched by UN Member States at the 2012 Rio+20 Conference, not by the Club of Rome. NCERT says the Club of Rome, a global think tank, published Limits to Growth in 1972, a warning about the depletion of the Earth's resources.
- ✓ 2. The 2030 Agenda, adopted by the UN in 2015 with 17 Goals and 169 targets, commits countries to working for its full implementation by 2030.
Remember · SDGs: 17 goals, adopted by the UN in 2015, target year 2030; idea launched at Rio+20 (2012). The Club of Rome's 1972 work was Limits to Growth.
📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 12 Contemporary World Politics, Ch 6 (practise this chapter)
Sources
- United Nations: United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20 (2012) ↗ “At the Conference, Member States decided to launch a process to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), building on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and converging with the post-2015 development agenda.”
- United Nations: Transforming our world, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ↗ “We commit ourselves to working tirelessly for the full implementation of this Agenda by 2030.”
- NCERT Class 12 · Contemporary World Politics, Chapter 6 “The Club of Rome, a global think tank, published a book in 1972 entitled Limits to Growth, dramatising the potential depletion of the Earth's resources”
Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2016, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). ·