WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY 2015

Rehan Ahmed*

World Environment Day (WED) was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. WED is commemorated annually on 5^th June and is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness on the environment and promotes suitable actions. WED's agenda is to empower people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development, promote an understanding that communities are pivotal to changing attitudes towards environmental issues, advocate partnership which will ensure all nations and peoples enjoy a safer and more prosperous future.

This year’s WED theme is “Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care”. The well-being of humanity, the environment, and the functioning of the economy, ultimately depend upon the responsible management of the planet’s natural resources.

Many of the Earth’s ecosystems are nearing critical tipping points of depletion or irreversible change, pushed by high population growth and economic development. By 2050, if current consumption and production patterns remain the same and with a rising population expected to reach 9.6 billion, we will need three planets to sustain our ways of living and consumption.

Thus, living within planetary boundaries is the most promising strategy for ensuring a healthy future. Human prosperity need not cost the earth. Living sustainably is about ‘doing more and better with less’.

The three basic resources are water, energy and food, which need to be sustained and conserved. Excessive use of water contributes to the global water stress. More than 1 billion people still do not have access to fresh water.

We are consuming a lot of energy and its conservation is urgently required. Households consume 29% of global energy and consequently contribute to 21% of resultant CO2 emissions.

Around 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year while almost 1 billion people go undernourished and another 1 billion hungry. Overconsumption of food is detrimental to our health and the environment as almost 1.5 billion people globally are overweight or obese. Land degradation, declining soil fertility, unsustainable water use, overfishing and marine environment degradation are all reducing the ability of the natural resource base to supply food. The food sector accounts for around 30% of the world’s total energy consumption and accounts for around 22% of total Greenhouse Gas emissions.

WED 2015 is being globally hosted by Italy, a country at the forefront of global action towards improved global nutrition and resource use. This year, WED is focusing on the need to respect the carrying capacity of the planet and to manage natural resources efficiently.

The goal of sustainable development is to increase the quality of life for all people without increasing environmental degradation, and without compromising the resource needs of future generations. We can do this by shifting our consumption patterns towards goods that use less energy, water and other resources, and by wasting less food. Individual action is required which can collectively save our only planet.

Let us think about the environmental consequences of the choices we make. Let us become better stewards of our planet. Our decisions today will shape the world our children and grandchildren will live in.

Let us improve our environmental habits by conserving, minimizing, reducing and avoiding the extravagant use of resources by switching off appliances after use, conserve and minimize use of water, recycle and reuse spent water in every form and avoid wasting food.

* Head, Waste Disposal Unit, Supreme Council for Environment, Bahrain (Email: rahmed@sce.gov.bh)