UN Environment Assembly tackles pollution menace

06 Décembre 2017

Nairobi, Kenya, December 6 (Infosplusgabon) - Key among issues being discussed at the third UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, which started at the UNEP headquarters, Nairobi, on Monday is  to tackle the global menace of pollution.

The assembly, bringing together over 4,000 heads of state, ministers, business leaders, UN officials and civil society representatives gathered Monday for a three-day meeting which ends on Wednesday.

It will, among others, discuss new approaches to tackle air pollution, which is the single biggest environmental killer, claiming 6.5 million lives each year.

As the world’s highest-level decision-making body on the environment, it brings together participants to share ideas and commit to action.

Over 80 percent of cities don’t meet UN health standards on air quality. Over a dozen resolutions are on the table at the assembly, including new approaches to tackle air pollution, the UN agency says.

“Our collective goal must be to embrace ways to reduce pollution drastically,” said Dr. Edgar Gutiérrez, Minister of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica and the President of the 2017 assembly. “Only through stronger collective action, beginning in Nairobi this week, can we start cleaning up the planet globally and save countless lives.”

Exposure to lead in paint, which causes brain damage to 600,000 children annually, and water and soil pollution are also key focus areas.

The seas already contain 500 “dead zones” with too little oxygen to support marine life, the agency says.

Over 80 percent of the world’s wastewater is released into the environment without treatment, poisoning the fields where we grow our food and the lakes and rivers that provide drinking water to 300 million people.

The statistics and report are grim. There is also a huge economic cost. A just-published report by the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health says that welfare losses due to pollution are estimated at over US$ 4.6 trillion each year, equivalent to 6.2 per cent of global economic output.

“Given the grim statistics on how we are poisoning ourselves and our planet, bold decisions from the UN Environment Assembly are critical,” said head of UN Environment, Erik Solheim. “That is as true for threats like pollution as it is for climate change and the many other environmental threats we face.”

A broader UN Environment policy statement, released ahead of the meeting, highlights the links between events over the last 12 months – hurricanes in the Caribbean and United States, droughts in the Horn of Africa and Yemen.

Others are flooding in Bangladesh, India and Europe – and the decisions we take about our ecosystems, energy, natural resources, urban expansion, infrastructure, production, consumption and waste management.

Solheim makes it clear that all of the complex global processes linked to the environment, such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement, boil down to one simple message: we must take care of people and planet.

Solheim also points to many solutions to the problem of pollution and other environmental concerns, such as decoupling economic growth from natural resource use.

UNEP is also suggesting solutions to the problems. For example, the policy statement says that technically and commercially viable solutions can improve water and energy efficiency by 60-80% in construction, agriculture, transport and other key sectors.

This will culminate in saving, while saving US$2.9 - US$3.7 trillion a year by 2030. With over 60 percent of the urban infrastructure anticipated in the coming decades to be built, the opportunities to shape a better future “are simply staggering”.

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/OPL/GABON 2017

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