UN: Urgent climate action needed
Thursday, 25 Oct 2007 19:59
The United Nations has warned that mankind is living beyond its means
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The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned that humanity could be at risk if threats to the environment are not tackled immediately.
UNEP's Global Environmental Outlook report, which assesses the state of the world's resources, singled out climate change, the extinction of species and the earth's growing food requirements as "major threats to the planet" that needed to be solved.
The report, which is prepared by 390 experts, calls for "urgent" action while warning that slow progress in implementing changes demanded by previous reports could mean that the planet would be irreversibly damaged.
Furthermore, it warns that mankind is living beyond its means and exhausting the earth's resources at an increasing rate.
"The human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available... humanity's footprint [its environmental demand] is 21.9 hectares per person while the Earth's biological capacity is, on average, only 15.7 ha/person," the report warns.
Speaking about the pace of progress on environmental issues, UNEP executive director Archim Steiner said: "There continue to be persistent and intractable problems unresolved and unaddressed.
"Past issues remain and new ones are emerging, from the rapid rise of oxygen 'dead zones' in the oceans to the resurgence of new and old diseases linked in part with environmental degradation," he said.
The agency's report also expressed concern about action taken to combat climate change stating that "a remarkable lack of urgency", and a "woefully inadequate" global response was hindering efforts to protect the environment.
It also calls for countries to agree to "large cuts" during forthcoming discussions on the replacement of the Kyoto Protocol.
"There have been enough wake-up calls... The systematic destruction of the Earth's natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged and where the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay," Mr Steiner said.