Global Environment Outlook
October 29, 2007 by Eugene
Filed under Asia, Education and Environmentalism, Government and Policies, Nature and Biodiversity, Waste and Materials, Water, Air and Land
UNEP recently published the comprehensive fourth Global Environment Outlook: environment for development (GEO-4) report which “assesses the current state of the global atmosphere, land, water and biodiversity, describes the changes since 1987, and identifies priorities for action.”
The report concluded that progress has been made in some straightforward problems but persistent problems remain, which could threaten humanity’s survival. The slow pace of progress is also a concern as it “fails to respond to or recognize the magnitude of the challenges facing the people and the environment of the planet”.
In Asia and the Pacific, fast developing growth rates are threatening the region’s health, environment and biodiversity. In Asian cities, increased urbanisation and motor vehicle usage has resulted in the degradation of air quality for more than 1 billion people. The lack of adequate water supply is also a concern with about 655 million people lacking access to clean water. Ecosystems such as mangroves and coral reefs are also at risk. Furthermore, increased consumption has led to the generation of large waste quantities. Read more from the GEO-4 factsheet on Asia and the Pacific.
Some key facts from the report include:
There is now “visible and unequivocal” evidence of the impacts of climate change, and consensus that human activities have been decisive in this change: global average temperatures have risen by about 0.74°C since 1906. A best estimate for this century’s rise is expected to be between a further 1.8°C and 4°C. Some scientists believe a 2°C increase in the global mean temperature above pre-industrial levels is a threshold beyond which the threat of major and irreversible damage becomes more plausible.
More than two million people worldwide are estimated to die prematurely every year from indoor and outdoor air pollution.
Some of the progress achieved in reducing pollution in developed countries has been at the expense of the developing world, where industrial production and its impacts are now being exported.
Unsustainable land use is causing degradation, a threat as serious as climate change and biodiversity loss. It affects up to a third of the world’s people, through pollution, soil erosion, nutrient depletion, water scarcity, salinity, and disruption of biological cycles.
About 60 per cent of the ecosystem services that have been assessed are degraded or used unsustainably; populations of freshwater vertebrates declined on average by nearly 50 per cent from 1987 to 2003, much faster than terrestrial or marine species.
In developing countries some 3 million people die annually from water-borne diseases, most of them under-five-year-olds. An estimated 2.6 billion people lack improved sanitation services.
Consumption has been growing faster than population, but unequally: the total annual income of nearly 1 billion people, the population of the richest countries, is almost 15 times that of the 2.3 billion people in the poorest countries.
There are fewer resources to share: the amount of land per capita is about a quarter of what it was a century ago, and is expected to fall to about one-fifth of the 1900 level by 2050.
The problems look depressing but remember what Arnold Schwarzenegger said before:
Similar PostsI’m an optimist. I don’t look at this as if the world is coming to an end. I see it as a great opportunity to clean up our mess. We’re grownups, we aren’t children, and we can do it.”
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