Forty years ago to this day, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) launched World Environment Day to raise global awareness about the environment, its protection and its deleterious effects on us if it is grossly neglected and abused. Every year, countries around the world mark June 5 as the World Environment Day to stir the conscience of billions of people; to make them pause and think about Nature’s gifts to us and safeguard them for posterity and for our own benefit to maintain a healthy personal life.
When the Day was launched in 1972 at the UN Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm in the presence of representatives of 113 countries, 19 inter-governmental agencies and over 400 inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations, it had lofty ideas; principal among them is to arrest environmental degradation. The conference had also drawn up a 109-point action plan and agreed upon a charter of recommendations.
The Stockholm meet could be rightly described as the launching pad for successive global conferences on climate, ecology, environment and green and clean energy campaigns. In these 40 years, several rounds of talks have been held at regional and global levels on ways and means of reducing carbon pollution besides campaigns for clean water and air, for increasing forest cover, for minimizing waste, among many other initiatives.
The impact of Stockholm initiative could be seen, and felt, much more in Europe than in any other part of the world. In 1973, the European Union created the Environmental and Consumer Protection Directorate and chalked out the first environment action plan. Since then European countries have been following tailor-made green policies whose success is noteworthy in enhancing the quality of life there.
The World Environment Day, popularly known as WED, is a yearly reminder to governments, organizations and people about the need to maintain our habitat clean and green and the event is devoted to a theme and commemorated in a city anywhere in the world. This year, the Brazilian city Rio de Janeiro is the host where a week-long international exposition focuses on the theme “Green Economy: Does it include you?”
The general public has different perceptions about the green economy; for that matter, anything to do with green except envy. The word green itself is often misused and misinterpreted. It’s more so if it is green economy. The UNEP defines it as which significantly reduces environmental risks and ecological scarcities in an improved human well-being and social equity. In other words, it is low-carbon economy that uses the available resources more prudently and efficiently, minimizing the loss of biodiversity and ecology.
Much importance is attached to this year’s WED as it coincides with the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Summit that was held in Rio in 1992. Incidentally, the Rio+20 Earth Summit will be held in Brazil later this month under UN auspices to draw a blueprint for a global sustainable low-carbon green economy, an effort made by world leaders at the 2010 Copenhagen climate summit but failed to reach a consensus on the mechanism to reduce carbon emissions according to a time-bound programme.
Nevertheless, the forthcoming Earth Summit should provide them with another opportunity to hammer out a plan agreeable to both industrialized and developing countries.But before that, it’s important for governments and people not to pay lip service to the WED with exhibitions and speeches. Environment protection is a matter of everybody’s concern, irrespective of the place where one lives. In fact, it is incumbent upon the people to safeguard it as a matter of duty.
Sadly, very few see it in that spirit; on the other hand, day and night the air we breathe, the land we cultivate and the water we drink are all polluted to such an extent that no law in this country is able to effectively halt the environmental degradation being perpetuated by unscrupulous and greedy elements, often with the connivance of officials and authorities.
All over the world, environment is a casualty in the development process. In modern history, no nation has grown without sacrificing its environment, displacing its people and raping the land and river systems. But if the process goes on mindlessly, it upsets the balance between Nature and human population, ultimately leading to disasters to which we are witness.
Striking a balance between development and environment is not easy; but efforts for sustainability of both are feasible and desirable. When no such attempts are made, local populace which is supposed to reap benefits from the projects being built upon their lands using the nearby water resources revolts against them. That’s precisely what’s happening in almost all the States in the country.
Whether they are mega projects like steel mills, power plants, mining projects, etc. or garbage dumps and sewage treatment plants in urban areas, people object to their setting up simply because they pollute the surroundings and endanger the health of local communities. These are familiar stories all over the country; the kind of situations that call for solutions and this is where the WED’s 2012 theme is most appropriate.
Besides the measures governments take to cut pollution levels in accordance with international conventions, individually and collectively people can contribute a lot to keep environment healthy. The steps they can take to maintain clean surroundings, water bodies, air, greenery, etc. don’t involve huge amounts of money but a change of outlook and mindset. More important is the resoluteness to respect Nature and its bounty.
It’s an irony that in a land where people have been worshipping Nature in all its forms and manifestations for thousands of years and the scriptures and the ancient literary tomes eulogize the beauty and greatness of environment, seasons and natural elements and consider them as gifts or avatars of God, the very basis of human evolution and existence is threatened due to rampant exploitation of environment.
When we think of the 2012 World Environment Day’s theme “Green Economy: Does it include you?” it encompasses not only the countries but their peoples also and their obligation towards saving the environment, both at micro and macro level. Then alone we can hope to see a better tomorrow.
When the Day was launched in 1972 at the UN Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm in the presence of representatives of 113 countries, 19 inter-governmental agencies and over 400 inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations, it had lofty ideas; principal among them is to arrest environmental degradation. The conference had also drawn up a 109-point action plan and agreed upon a charter of recommendations.
The Stockholm meet could be rightly described as the launching pad for successive global conferences on climate, ecology, environment and green and clean energy campaigns. In these 40 years, several rounds of talks have been held at regional and global levels on ways and means of reducing carbon pollution besides campaigns for clean water and air, for increasing forest cover, for minimizing waste, among many other initiatives.
The impact of Stockholm initiative could be seen, and felt, much more in Europe than in any other part of the world. In 1973, the European Union created the Environmental and Consumer Protection Directorate and chalked out the first environment action plan. Since then European countries have been following tailor-made green policies whose success is noteworthy in enhancing the quality of life there.
The World Environment Day, popularly known as WED, is a yearly reminder to governments, organizations and people about the need to maintain our habitat clean and green and the event is devoted to a theme and commemorated in a city anywhere in the world. This year, the Brazilian city Rio de Janeiro is the host where a week-long international exposition focuses on the theme “Green Economy: Does it include you?”
The general public has different perceptions about the green economy; for that matter, anything to do with green except envy. The word green itself is often misused and misinterpreted. It’s more so if it is green economy. The UNEP defines it as which significantly reduces environmental risks and ecological scarcities in an improved human well-being and social equity. In other words, it is low-carbon economy that uses the available resources more prudently and efficiently, minimizing the loss of biodiversity and ecology.
Much importance is attached to this year’s WED as it coincides with the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Summit that was held in Rio in 1992. Incidentally, the Rio+20 Earth Summit will be held in Brazil later this month under UN auspices to draw a blueprint for a global sustainable low-carbon green economy, an effort made by world leaders at the 2010 Copenhagen climate summit but failed to reach a consensus on the mechanism to reduce carbon emissions according to a time-bound programme.Nevertheless, the forthcoming Earth Summit should provide them with another opportunity to hammer out a plan agreeable to both industrialized and developing countries.But before that, it’s important for governments and people not to pay lip service to the WED with exhibitions and speeches. Environment protection is a matter of everybody’s concern, irrespective of the place where one lives. In fact, it is incumbent upon the people to safeguard it as a matter of duty.
Sadly, very few see it in that spirit; on the other hand, day and night the air we breathe, the land we cultivate and the water we drink are all polluted to such an extent that no law in this country is able to effectively halt the environmental degradation being perpetuated by unscrupulous and greedy elements, often with the connivance of officials and authorities.
All over the world, environment is a casualty in the development process. In modern history, no nation has grown without sacrificing its environment, displacing its people and raping the land and river systems. But if the process goes on mindlessly, it upsets the balance between Nature and human population, ultimately leading to disasters to which we are witness.
Striking a balance between development and environment is not easy; but efforts for sustainability of both are feasible and desirable. When no such attempts are made, local populace which is supposed to reap benefits from the projects being built upon their lands using the nearby water resources revolts against them. That’s precisely what’s happening in almost all the States in the country.
Whether they are mega projects like steel mills, power plants, mining projects, etc. or garbage dumps and sewage treatment plants in urban areas, people object to their setting up simply because they pollute the surroundings and endanger the health of local communities. These are familiar stories all over the country; the kind of situations that call for solutions and this is where the WED’s 2012 theme is most appropriate.
Besides the measures governments take to cut pollution levels in accordance with international conventions, individually and collectively people can contribute a lot to keep environment healthy. The steps they can take to maintain clean surroundings, water bodies, air, greenery, etc. don’t involve huge amounts of money but a change of outlook and mindset. More important is the resoluteness to respect Nature and its bounty.
It’s an irony that in a land where people have been worshipping Nature in all its forms and manifestations for thousands of years and the scriptures and the ancient literary tomes eulogize the beauty and greatness of environment, seasons and natural elements and consider them as gifts or avatars of God, the very basis of human evolution and existence is threatened due to rampant exploitation of environment.
When we think of the 2012 World Environment Day’s theme “Green Economy: Does it include you?” it encompasses not only the countries but their peoples also and their obligation towards saving the environment, both at micro and macro level. Then alone we can hope to see a better tomorrow.
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