World remains on unsustainable path – UNEP report on eve of Rio+20 Summit - 6 June, 2012.
The world continues to speed down an unsustainable path despite over 500 internationally agreed goals and objectives to support the sustainable management of the environment and improve human wellbeing, according to a new and wide-ranging assessment coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The fifth edition of the Global Environmental
Outlook (GEO-5) report, launched on
the eve of the Rio+20 Summit, assessed 90 of the most-important environmental
goals and objectives and found that significant progress had only been made in
four.
These areas of progress were: eliminating the
production and use of substances that deplete the ozone layer, removal of lead
from fuel, increasing access to improved water supplies and boosting research
to reduce pollution of the marine environment.
Some progress was shown in reaching 40 of the goals,
including the expansion of protected areas such as national parks and efforts
to reduce deforestation. Little or no progress was detected for 24 goals –
including climate change, fish stocks, and desertification and drought. Further
deterioration was posted for eight goals including the state of the world’s
coral reefs, while no assessment could be made of 14 other goals due to a lack
of data.
Europe has particularly unsustainable levels of
consumption, the report notes, which is driving many of these problems.
Nonetheless, it highlights some successes in Europe including cutting carbon
emissions.
The report cautions that if humanity does not
urgently change its ways, several critical thresholds may be exceeded, beyond
which abrupt and generally irreversible changes to the life-support functions
of the planet could occur.
For example, at the regional scale, freshwater lake
and estuary ecosystems can collapse abruptly due to eutrophication; at the
global level an abrupt and irreversible example of change could be the melting
of the Arctic ice-sheet due to an amplification of global warming
“With clear progress in only four of 90
environmental areas, we are certainly heading in a very dangerous direction,”
Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency said.
“However, the report also shows that in a few areas, international agreements
have been very successful. We must learn from these successes, and use the
Rio+20 Summit to take action on these accelerating trends of environmental
destruction.”
The Summit in Rio could mark a turning point - the
report says it is possible to meet an ambitious set of sustainability targets
by the middle of the century if current policies and strategies are changed and
strengthened.
GEO-5 also points out that where international
treaties and agreements have tackled goals with specific, measurable
targets—such as the bans on ozone-depleting substances and lead in petrol—they
have demonstrated considerable success. For this reason, GEO-5 calls for more
specific targets, with quantifiable results, across a broader range of
environmental challenges.
The report also calls for a greater focus on
policies that target the drivers of environmental change – such as population
growth and urbanisation, unsustainable consumption patterns, fossil fuel-based
energy consumption and transport, as well as globalisation.
In particular, globalisation has made it possible
for intense pressures to be concentrated in specific parts of the world very
quickly, as in the case of increased demand for biofuels leading to land
clearance and conversion.
Although reducing the drivers of environmental
change directly may appear politically difficult, the report claims that it is
possible to obtain significant indirect benefits by targeting more expedient
objectives, such as international goals on human well-being.
Findings from EEA report, 'European environment -
state and outlook 2010', were used by UNEP in preparing the GEO-5 assessment.
Source: www.eea.europa.eu
6 June, 2012.