The World Conference on Physics and Sustainable Development was a unique opportunity for the international physics community to come together and formulate a plan for tackling some of the large problems facing the world. In the past, physics has made tremendous contributions to the health and welfare of people and nations. Think of the contributions that physics has made to the world economy in areas such as electronics, materials, and computer technology, and to health through x-rays, magnetic resonance imaging and nuclear medicine. These contributions are ongoing and were celebrated during the World Year of Physics and at this Conference. However, many of these contributions have benefited people in the developed world more than those in the developing world. The World Conference gave the physics community the chance to begin to focus on how we can work with colleagues in the developing world to bring more benefits to their world.
In part, the Conference was a follow up to the UNESCO-ICSU World Conference on Science, which was held in June 1999 and sought to strengthen the ties between science and society, as well as to the broader United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development that was held in Johannesburg in the summer of 2002. The Conference lead to important action items that organizations of physicists, including national physical societies, will join together to implement collectively.
As part of the celebration of the International (World) Year of Physics, UNESCO, the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), and the South African Institute of Physics (SAIP) joined together to sponsor the World Conference on Physics and Sustainable Development. It drew about 350 people from around the world, including representatives of physics organizations and the private sector. With the help of many organizations, funds were made available to support the attendance of more than 175 physicists from developing countries and Eastern Europe.
Four themes were chosen for the conference:
For each theme, an international Program Committee developed a program that allowed participants to formulate an action plan for the future. The Conference encouraged the broad physics community to initiate new mechanisms of cooperation to carry out its plan of action. The Conference provided an international forum to develop closer communications, partnerships and networks among physicists, industrialists and policy makers from developed and developing countries.
