Sixty per cent of the world’s ecosystems are in decline because of unsustainable use and at current levels of resource usage by humans, the Earth’s population has now gone well beyond the level at which the planet can sustain it. These are the key warnings in a landmark report from United Nations Environment Programme, which acts as the most comprehensive report card available on the state and trends of the Earth’s environment.
In the fourth report in its Global Environment Outlook series, or GEO 4, UNEP draws together assessments on climate change, biodiversity, land degradation, fresh water, oceans and fisheries. It is the work of 388 scientists, peer reviewed by 1000 others, and covers the last 20 years since the landmark Brundtland Commission report which brought the environment into world consciousness.
All the areas of concern raised in the 1987 report are still heading in the wrong direction, the latest assessment finds. The report calls on governments to put the environment “at the core of decision-making” and lead a turnaround in what has been a remarkable “lack of urgency” in moving onto a sustainable development path.
"The systematic destruction of the Earth's natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged, and where the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay," the head of UNEP, Achim Steiner, said in launching the report.
He said global efforts to respond to environmental challenges “has in some cases been courageous and inspiring. But all too often it has been slow and at a pace and scale that fails to respond to or recognise the magnitude of the challenges facing the people and the environment of the planet".
GEO 4 acknowledges varying degrees of success of international treaties on ozone-depletion, biodiversity and desertification but describes the Kyoto Protocol’s record so far in cutting greenhouse gases as “far from adequate”.
On climate change, the report urges faster progress on reining in greenhouse gas emissions saying the total cost of measures so far to mitigate climate change have only been a fraction of the global GDP. “Mainstreaming climate concerns in development planning is urgent, especially in sectors such as energy, transport, agriculture, forests and infrastructure development, at both policy and implementation levels” the report states.
On biodiversity, the report warns that human development has put the world on the verge of its sixth mass extinction event in the past 450 million years, the last of which was 65 million years ago. More than 30 per cent of amphibians, 23 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds are threatened.
Agence France-Presse, Reuters, The Guardian, 25/10/07
Full report linksDownload: Chapters 2-5 - Climate, Land, Water & Biodiversity [PDF 44 pgs]