All hands must be on deck on World Environment Day

Today is World Environment Day. It is five decades since the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment took Place in Sweden, leading to the adoption of the World Environment Day. One other major outcome of the Stockholm conference was the establishment of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

During this meeting, world leaders committed to protect the environment through policies and decisions that promote sustainable development. Henceforth, the event has been celebrated annually on June 5, with different themes relating to the environment.

 The United Nations has leveraged this day as a platform to champion global awareness and galvanize action for a sustainable environment. Some of the major environmental concerns are the increasing desertification that is estimated  to have already claimed 75 percent of the earth surface with projections of 90 percent being degraded by 2050 if no action is taken.

 Plastic pollution is another menace that the environment faces.  At least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year. These result in severe injuries and death of marine life. Finally, climate change, which is an outcome of global warming, has become one of the “wicked” problems of the 21st century. 

Effort towards environmental conservation must neither be confined to the world environment day nor relegated to a few individuals or entities. In this regard, the role of the UN and other social networks organised around a sustainable future are laudable. The United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for example, has played a major role in addressing the ever-increasing threat of climate change since 1994. 

In 2015 during the 21st conference of the parties (COP21) held in Paris, over 195 nations adopted a landmark pact to curtail the increasing risk of global warming. Nations submitted their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the conference and these later became the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as frameworks and drivers for countries’ National Adaptation Plans (NAPs).

 The Global Stock Take for these instruments on climate action are ongoing in preparation for submission by parties of their new NDCs in 2024. Other than this, the preparation for COP27 is on course across the world and meetings such as the Bonn Climate Change talks that begin tomorrow are all in a bid to build political momentum for the much-anticipated meeting in Cairo, Egypt in November later in the year.

This year’s world environment day being hosted in Sweden under the theme Only One Earth, emphasizes the need for sustainable coexistence with nature. Much similar to the 1972’s UN Conference on the Human Environment, it is a bold reminder that humanity is exhausting the planet’s resources and therefore the urgent need for urgent action.

It is estimated that the sub -Saharan Africa annual losses on degraded ecosystems stand at $68 billion, which from any balanced perspective is costly.  Yet, to finance these losses the continent turns to official development assistance that has dwindled to a paltry one percent and contributes to a mere 3percent GDP of the whole continent. The reversing of these losses easily translate to harnessed finance for other socio-economic activities and or more specifically to climate adaptation priorities.

The clarity of the science has been presented through the Adaptation Gap Reports, which points out that financial gaps still abound in scaling out adaptation projects of countries. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Reports (AR6) by Working Group Two and Three have equally emphasized adaptation as a pressing concern. The AU Agenda 2063 and the African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEEN) have all underscored the need for innovation in designing solutions for sustainability.

These and many others are glorious and laudable efforts that have yielded concrete policies geared towards sustainability. While Africa has demonstrated leadership in responding to environmental sustainability through enacting these policies, the continent still faces disasters that are related to climate menace and degraded ecosystems.

The reality is that the task towards environmental sustainability is indeed immense and calls for more than meetings and conferences. To address the problems created by humans it is imperative to marshal effort by all concerned. 

As much as the level of involvement may vary, it is important that all affected by resource exploitation, projects, and any activity on the environment are accorded the opportunity in carting inclusive sustainable solutions.

Local communities are more affected by changes in their environment and have applied indigenous knowledge which must be incorporated into the decision making process as some of the environmental issues are complicated and non-iterative.  

The neglect of this level of stakeholders has more often than not culminated into projects that do not solve problems but are maladaptive in nature.

Florence Onyango is a research student at the Institute of Climate Change Adaptation of the University of Nairobi Twitter @fkadenge1