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World bugged by stubborn environment problems: report
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 25 - 10 - 2007


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, according to dpa.
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.


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