Swan set out to change that. Invited to speak to world leaders at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil, in 1992 he outlined a plan.

VOA: standard.2009.12.10

At the Rio Summit, only the British delegation is likely to have heard of Romney Marsh.

BBC: Jobs or birds: Turning Rio rhetoric into reality

It was one of his main reasons for proposing the Rio summit, in 1997.

ECONOMIST: French lessons

He moved on to organise the 1972 Stockholm conference on the environment and the Rio summit 20 years later.

ECONOMIST: Canada