World bugged by stubborn environment problems: report

Oct 25, 2007, 15:43 GMT

New York - Despite advances made in the past 20 years to solve problems ranging from the lack of water to the deteriorating environment, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said Thursday old problems remain unresolved while others have emerged.

UNEP said the comprehensive study, the Global Environment Outlook, is aimed not at presenting a dark, gloomy scenario, but as an 'urgent call to action.' The report known as GEO-4 is the fourth since 1987.

It warned that failure to resolve those persistent problems may undo all the achievements made so far.

The 540-page study on the current state of global atmosphere, land, water and biodiversity followed on recommendations from a 1987 report on world environment and development written by a commission headed by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.

GEO-4 differs from studies on climate change because it deals with the environmental impact on development, the vulnerability of the people, governance and issues of sustainable development. Reports issued earlier this year by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) focused on global warming as a result of human activities.

UNEP director general Achim Steiner said in GEO-4 that the 1987 report, was well received, but the response had been slow and not in tune with the magnitude of the challenges facing the world population.

In the past 20 years, the international community has cut by 95 per cent production of ozone-layer damaging chemicals, created the Kyoto Protocol to fight and trade greenhouse emissions and devised treaties to support biodiversity and fight desertification, UNEP said.

'But there continues to be persistent and intractable problems unresolved and unaddressed,' Steiner said. 'Past issues remain and new ones are emerging.'

Steiner cited the rapid rise of oxygen 'dead zones' in the oceans and the resurgence of new and old diseases linked in part to the degradation of the environment.

GEO-4 said the world has changed radically since the its first report on the environment and the growing population has outstripped available resources.

It said the world population has increased by 34 per cent since 1987, trade has tripled and the average per capita income went up by 40 per cent.

CLIMATE CHANGE - GEO-4 said the annual global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning have risen by a third since 1987, making the oceans more acidic and threatening corals and molluscs. It said the levels of carbon and methane gas in ice cores are at the greatest levels for the last 500,000 years and the earth's climate has entered a state 'unparallel in recent prehistory.'

It said there are now 'visible and unequivocal' signs of human impacts on climate change. It said average global temperatures have risen by about 0.74 degrees Celsius since 1906 and temperatures are projected to increase to between 1.8 degrees and 4 degrees this century.

POLLUTION AND OZONE - The report said there had been some bright spots in cleaning up the atmosphere in the past 20 years, but progress had been patchy and 2 million people die prematurely each year from indoor and outdoor pollution. GEO-4 said ground level ozone pollution has increased throughout the Northern Hemisphere, affecting human beings and crops.

WATER - The world's water resources are affected by climate change, human use of water, farming, landscaping and persistent overfishing. The Mediterranean region, Southern Africa and Southern Asia are expected to have more intense and longer droughts, the report said.

By 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will live in countries with 'absolute water scarcity,' it predicted. Developing countries would need twice the amount of water currently in use and rich countries would need an additional 18 per cent by the same year.

LAND - Land use has changed dramatically in intensity since 1987, the report found. The average farmer now produces 1.4 tons of crops compared to 1 ton 20 years ago. A hectare of cropland now produces 2.5 tons as opposed to 1.8 tons. GEO-4 said unsustainable land use is causing soil degradation and damage equal to climate change.

Damaged soil and changes in land use have caused atmospheric carbon dioxide to increase by about a third in the last 150 years.

'It affects human well-being, through pollution, soil erosion, nutrient depletion, water scarcity, salinity, and disruption of biological cycles,' GEO-4 said.