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Achim Steiner, UN Under Secretary General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
UNEP is calling upon all of us to be part of the World Environment Day (WED). What will happen on June 5, 2011?
June 5 is a special day in the international calendar and a special day for UNEP, which is coordinating the World Environment Day (WED) on behalf of the UN system. It is a moment for citizens, communities, organizations and companies across the globe to find their voice, exercise their commitment, register their concern and take action at the level of the citizen and the community towards a more sustainable future.
This year’s theme is Forests – Nature at Your Service, reflecting as it does the UN’s International Year of Forests and an increasing understanding of the economic, environmental and social importance of forest ecosystems. If I said to you that, year in year out, up to as much as $4.5 trillion is wiped off the global economy you might imagine a new economic crisis or a second financial one. But this is the sum estimated by a broad partnership, hosted by UNEP, called The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, which is trying to bring the invisibility of the world’s nature-based assets into national accounts.
Forests and the services they provide – from capturing carbon from the atmosphere to generating water supplies and stabilizing soils – should never be reduced to Euros and cents or Yuan or Rupees. They represent far more to people than this. But unless governments are made aware of their huge economic importance as well, then they and other ecosystems such as mangroves and coral reefs may forever be short-changed when decisions about infrastructure development or agricultural expansion are made.
On this day we want everyone – ideally seven billion people! – to get involved in actions that contribute to healthy forests from tree planting to restorations of woodlands and more. Some people will be carrying out sponsored bike rides and others may be switching their light bulbs to low energy ones. The public and civil society give politicians their license to operate. Making it clear how much the public cares about forests and the broad range of environmental challenges we face today, can trigger confidence among policymakers that in turn can translate into political change in favour of a more sustainable future.
WED has been on the calendar since 1972 and is growing from strength to strength. Last year, millions upon millions of people got involved in over 100 countries. This year India will be the main host country. Last year it was Rwanda under the theme Many Species, One Planet, One Future.
What can international associations do for WED?
They can publicise WED amongst their members, join up with other partner organizations and reach out into their communities to catalyze positive environmental change – one thing that is not in short supply is human ingenuity and energy. International organizations can be part of the solution which in turn can benefit their and their members’ interests, because handing on a productive, healthy and functioning planet to the next generation has to be everyone’s concern.
Why is this global event so important for UNEP?
WED is always an important day for UNEP. But WED 2011 takes on special significance. It comes in advance of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development 2012, 20 years after the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 that laid the foundations for modern sustainable development.
It in turn comes 40 years after the Stockholm Conference that established UNEP in the first place. The world today is markedly different from the world of the late 20th century. Many of the challenges glimpsed in 1992 have – or are fast becoming – reality, from climate change and the extinction of species to rising levels of land degradation and shrinking availability of water supplies.
Rio+20, as next year’s conference is also known, represents an opportunity for a new generation of leaders to fulfil the promise and the vision of a previous generation. WED 2011 can be a building block towards that aim through the mobilization of broad public interest.
What is the aim of UNEP and what is your biggest challenge?
UNEP is the environmental agency within the UN system – we look at the challenge of sustainable development through a green lens. Our overarching aim is to provide the evidence and present the analysis that economies can grow, but in a way that generates decent jobs and keeps humanity’s footprint within ecological boundaries.
We need growth on a planet of seven billion people, rising to around nine billion by 2050 – growth that can also find employment for the 1.3 billion people under employed or unemployed and the half a billion young people set to be looking for work within this decade. Growth that also lifts many more people out of poverty and for example supplies access to electricity for over a billion people without it. But it has to be far more intelligent growth than perhaps has been practised in the past. Using up the world’s finite resources, damaging and degrading ecosystems such as fisheries and forests and polluting the atmosphere carries costs – costs which will become ever more expensive unless the world shifts to a low carbon, resource efficient path.
UNEP has crystallized much of this work under the theme The Green Economy – the Green Economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication is one of the two major themes at Rio+20 next year. Perhaps one example from one of our recent reports that suggests investing two per cent of global GDP in 10 sectors could, with the right enabling policies, kick-start that transition.
The report, compiled in collaboration with multiple partners, suggests that for example investing about one and a quarter per cent of global GDP each year in energy efficiency and renewable energies could cut global primary energy demand by nine per cent in 2020 and close to 40 per cent by 2050.
• Employment levels in the energy sector would be one-fifth higher than under a business as usual scenario as renewable energies take close to 30 per cent of the share of primary global energy demand by mid-century.
• Savings on capital and fuel costs in power generation would under a Green Economy scenario be on average $760 billion a year between 2010 and 2050.
This does not include the benefits to public health from reduced air pollution nor the cuts in greenhouse gases needed to stabilize the atmosphere.
Overall what UNEP is aiming to do is to challenge the myth that there is a trade-off between environmental sustainability, economic development and employment. In respect to challenges there are several. Any new idea is by its very nature disruptive to some. The Green Economy is no exception as it challenges the comfort of the status quo.
There are some who fear that a transition of this sort might trigger green trade barriers and tariffs and other unwelcome outcomes. These are risks that need to be managed and addressed. They are not new risks, but ones inherent in any economic model old or new.
How can international associations become (more) sustainable?
Perhaps by starting first with procurement policies. The kinds of goods and services international associations purchase and source – alongside their members - can have a major influence and a multiplier effect on moving sectors and sections of society onto a more sustainable path.
What can start as a drop in the lake, can send out ripples of positive change in 360 degrees of direction. Buildings are large consumers of energy and other resources. There are huge opportunities here to cut environmental footprints and cut bills. Meanwhile engaging at the level of the local authority, the national legislator and the United Nations on pathways to a Green Economy can also bear fruit.
International associations are also gateways to partnerships – in the end achieving a sustainable 21st century cannot be realized in isolation, it requires everyone to pull in the same transformational direction.
Achim Steiner is UN Under Secretary General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). UNEP is the designated authority of the United Nations system in environmental issues at the global and regional level. It coordinates the development of environmental policy consensus by keeping the global environment under review and bringing emerging issues to the attention of governments and the international community for action.