World Environment Day.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in this year’s message for the World Environment Day, observed annually on 5 June. “It is time for us to change.”
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, he noted.
5 June 2015 – With many of the earth’s ecosystems nearing “critical tipping points,” the United Nations invited each of the seven billion people on the planet to mark this year’s World Environment Day by making one change towards a more responsible consumption of resources – “be it refusing to buy single-use plastic bags or riding a bike to work.”
Humanity continues to consume far more natural resources than the planet can sustainably provide.
The theme of this year’s Day – “Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care,” – emphasizes the personal responsibility each person bears for enabling inclusive and sustainable economic development while stabilizing and reducing the rate of resource use.
We can do this by shifting our consumption patterns towards goods that use less energy, water and other resources and by wasting less food, Ban Ki-moon said.
Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said that our daily decisions as consumers, multiplied by billions, have a colossal impact on the environment – some of them contribute to the further depletion of natural resources, others help to protect fragile ecosystems.
Under current trends, global extraction of resources is set to reach 140 billion tonnes by 2050, compared to around 7 billion tonnes in 1900.
This will probably exceed the availability and accessibility of resources, as well as the carrying capacity of the planet to absorb the impacts of their extraction and use.
World Environment Day “is the opportunity for everyone to realize the responsibility to care for the Earth and to become agents of change,” Mr. Steiner said.
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