The sustainable development goals, now being negotiated for the post-2015 global agenda, which will be more transformative than the previous period, will define national trajectories for sustainable development and shape multilateral relations for the next 30 years.

The climate treaty, negotiated in Rio in 1992, is an experiment in bringing together development and environment to reconcile a continually growing global economy within a finite global ecosystem. However, international environmental law has not been able to resolve how to accommodate the rising living standards of all those who have so far been excluded from the benefits of globalization.

But after last year's Rio summit, environment and development are coming together around global sustainable development goals to shape the patterns, trends and drivers of global change. The new rules for the post-2020 climate regime are also now focusing on aggregate emissions pathways rather than percentage reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases.