- The world can transform its relationship with nature and tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution crises together to secure a sustainable future and prevent future pandemics, according to a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) that offers a comprehensive blueprint for future action.
- The report, Making Peace with Nature, lays out the gravity of these three environmental crises by drawing on global assessments, including those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, as well as UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook report, the UNEP International Resource Panel, and new findings on the emergence of zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19.
“By bringing together the latest scientific evidence showing the impacts and threats of the climate emergency, the biodiversity crisis and the pollution that kills millions of people every year, makes clear that our war on nature has left the planet broken,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in the report’s Foreword. “But it also guides us to a safer place by providing a peace plan and a post-war rebuilding programme. - Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, said the report highlighted the importance of changing mindsets and values, and finding political and technical solutions that measure up to the Earth’s environmental crises.
- It also lays out the roles that everyone – from governments and businesses to communities and individuals – can and must play. 2021 is especially crucial, with upcoming climate and biodiversity convention meetings - UNFCCC COP 26 and CBD COP 15 – where governments must come up with synergistic and ambitious targets to safeguard the planet by almost halving greenhouse gas emissions in this decade, and by conserving and restoring biodiversity.
Key Findings of the Report:
Planetary Emergencies:
- Climate Change: Climate change is increasing the chances of the Arctic Ocean being ice-free in summer, further disrupting ocean circulation and Arctic ecosystems.
- Climate change drives changes in wildfires and water stress and combines with biodiversity loss to degrade land and enhance drought in some regions.
Biodiversity Loss:
- More than one million of the estimated 8 million plant and animal species are increasingly at risk of extinction.
- Coral reefs are particularly vulnerable to climate change and are projected to decline to 10-30% of their former cover at 1.5°C of warming and to less than 1% at 2°C of warming, compromising food provision, tourism and coastal protection.
Pollution:
- Every year, nine million people die prematurely due to pollution.
- Up to 400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other industrial wastes enter the world’s waters annually.
Widening Inequalities:
- Human prosperity is strained by widening inequalities, whereby the burden of environmental decline weighs heaviest on the poor and vulnerable and looms even larger over today’s youth and future generations.
- Inequity in economic growth has left 1.3 billion people poor.
Performance over SDGs:
- Current and projected changes in climate, biodiversity loss and pollution make achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) even more challenging.
- The current mode of development degrades the Earth’s finite capacity to sustain human well-being.
Performance over Different Targets:
- Society is failing to meet most of its commitments to limit environmental damage.
- Society is not on course to achieve land degradation neutrality, Aichi Targets and targets of the Paris Agreement.
About United Nations Environment Programme
- The UNEP is a leading global environmental authority established on 5th June 1972.
- It sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the sustainable development within the United Nations system, and serves as an authoritative advocate for global environment protection.
- Major Reports: Emission Gap Report, Adaptation Gap Report, Global Environment Outlook, Frontiers, Invest into Healthy Planet.
- Major Campaigns: Beat Pollution, UN75, World Environment Day, Wild for Life.
- Headquarters: Nairobi, Kenya.
About United Nations Environment Assembly
- The United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) is the governing body of the UN Environment Programme.
- It is the world’s highest-level decision-making body on the environment.
- It meets biennially to set priorities for global environmental policies and develop international environmental law.
- It was created in June 2012, during the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also referred to as RIO+20.
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