By Glennah Nyamwaya
A landmark United Nations report has warned that the planet is undergoing damage so severe that it is affecting human health.
The sixth Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-6) report released during the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-4) in Nairobi revealed that unless urgent action is taken towards the protection of the environment, human health will face dire consequences.
“The science is clear. The health and prosperity of humanity is directly tied with the state of our environment,” said Joyce Msuya, Acting Executive Director of UN Environment during the Assembly.
The GEO-6 calls for urgent, inclusive and sustained action by governments, business and the society at large, which is proportionate to the scale and pace of global environmental change.
The report is a comprehensive and rigorous assessment on the state of the environment completed by 250 scientists and experts from more than 70 countries of the UN in the last 18 months.
“Either we drastically scale up environmental protections, or cities and regions in Asia, the Middle East and Africa could see millions of premature deaths by mid-century,” reads part of the report’s findings.
It also warns that pollutants in freshwater systems will see anti-microbial resistance become a major cause of death by the year 2050 and endocrine disruptors impact male and female fertility, as well as child neurodevelopment.
“This report is an outlook for humanity. We are at a crossroads. Do we continue on our current path, which will lead to a bleak future for humankind, or do we pivot to a more sustainable development pathway? That is the choice our political leaders must make, now,” Msuya noted during the launch of the 700-page report.
Among the alarms raised by the report include air pollution currently causing an estimated 6 to 7 million premature deaths annually.
We might also be witnessing the sixth mass species extinction in the planet’s history. This as 8 million tons of plastic enters the ocean every year as a result of mismanagement of domestic waste in coastal areas.
Other alarms raised by GEO-6 include pathogen-polluted drinking water and inadequate sanitation that cause approximately 1.4 million human deaths annually, with many millions more becoming ill.
These and other issues reported in the GEO-6 will lead to ongoing and potentially irreversible impacts if they are not addressed effectively, and immediately.
But the report highlights that the world has the science, technology and finance it needs to move towards a more sustainable development pathway.
The GEO-6 advises that pathways and approaches to systemic change exist, which must be scaled up quickly to steer the planet towards a more sustainable future.
For instance, reducing our use of fossil fuels leads to health benefits by decreasing outdoor air pollution responsible for premature deaths.
“The report shows that policies and technologies already exist to fashion new development pathways that will avoid these risks and lead to health and prosperity for all people,” said Joyeeta Gupta and Paul Ekins, co-chairs of the GEO-6 process.
“What is currently lacking is the political will to implement policies and technologies at a sufficient speed and scale. The fourth United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi in March needs to be the occasion when policymakers face up to the challenges and grasp the opportunities of a much brighter future for humanity,” they added.
According to the report, policy interventions that address entire systems; such as energy, food, and waste; rather than individual issues, such as water pollution, can be much more effective.
For example, a stable climate and clean air are interlinked; the climate mitigation actions for achieving the Paris Agreement targets would cost about US$ 22 trillion, but the combined health benefits from reduced air pollution could amount to an additional US$ 54 trillion.
While urbanization is happening at an unprecedented level globally, the report says it can present an opportunity to increase citizens’ well-being while decreasing their environmental footprint through improved governance, land-use planning and green infrastructure.
The projection of a future healthy planet with healthy people is based on a new way of thinking where the ‘grow now, clean up after’ model is changed to a near-zero-waste economy by 2050.
The report advises that adopting less-meat intensive diets, and reducing food waste in both developed and developing countries, would reduce the need to increase food production by 50 per cent.
The report states that at present, 33 per cent of global edible food is wasted, and 56 per cent of waste happens in industrialized countries.
Furthermore, efforts to eliminate hunger, such as changes in agriculture production, can help address climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation and chemical pollution.
With the window for action closing quickly, given the unprecedented rate of global environmental change, the GEO-6 is calling for more ambitious and innovative policy.
“We need significant change leading us to decarbonisation, a circular economy, sustainable agriculture and food systems, and better adapting socio-economic systems to climate change,” states the report.
The environment has continued to deteriorate since the first GEO-6 report in 1997, with potentially irreversible impacts if not effectively addressed.
But pathways to significant change do exist, and a sustainable future is still possible.
UNEA-4 took place in March with the theme, ‘Innovative Solutions for Environmental Challenges and Sustainable Consumption and Production’.
The conference attracted a record number of almost 5,000 participants from 179 countries, with five Heads of State and Government, 157 environment ministers and deputy ministers, attending the Assembly.
