ISLAMABAD, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- The fourth Global
Environment Outlook (GEO-4), the most comprehensive United Nations assessment
report on environment, development and human well-being was officially launched
at the UN Information Center in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Friday.
The State Minister for Environment
of Pakistan Amin Aslam gave brief explanations of the contents of the report
which includes Climate Change, Land, Biodiversity, Marine and Coastal,
Vulnerability of people and Environment and Freshwater.
According to the report, Asia and the Pacific, home
to 60 percent of the world's people, are making "remarkable" progress in
reducing poverty. The region is also improving its ability to protect the
environment; energy efficiency is increasing in many places, and drinking water
provision has advanced considerably in the last decade.
But progress has come at a price. Increases in
consumption and associated waste have contributed to the exponential growth in
existing environmental problems. Serious challenges remain, including urban air
quality, fresh water stress, agricultural land use (a threat to food security)
and increased waste. The illegal traffic in electronic and hazardous waste is a
new challenge affecting human health and the environment, said the report.
Environmental and economic policies have not been
fully integrated, a major obstacle to establishing an effective system of
environmental management, it added.
GEO-4 praised the world's progress in tackling some
relatively straightforward problems, with the environment now much closer to
mainstream politics everywhere. But despite these advances, there remain the
more persistent issues for which existing measures and institutional
arrangements have systematically demonstrated inadequacies and where solutions
are still emerging.
GEO-4 said the well-being of billions of people in
the developing world is at risk, because of a failure to remedy the relatively
simple problems which have been successfully tackled elsewhere.
It also mentioned that ecosystems and human health in
Asia and the Pacific continue to deteriorate, while population growth and rapid
economic development have driven significant environmental degradation and loss
of natural resources. However, the report also recognizes the region's
achievements in protecting its environment, key to tackling poverty.
This is the first GEO report in which all seven of
the world's regions emphasize the potential impacts of climate change, which
GEO-4 said is likely to mean more severe droughts and floods in the region, as
well as soil degradation, coastal inundation and salt water intrusion caused by
sea level rise.
The warnings come in GEO-4, the latest in the series
of flagship reports from the Nairobi-based United Nations EnvironmentProgram.
GEO-4 is published 20 years after the World Commission onEnvironment and
Development (the Brundtland Commission) produced its seminal report, Our Common
Future. It describes the changes since 1987, assesses the current state of
global atmosphere, land,water and biodiversity, and identifies priorities for
action.
The October release of GEO-4 took place in 40 cities
around the world.
