Buildings are seen against blue sky after the wind dispelled dangerous high levels of air pollution in Beijing on Dec. 22, 2016.
—Turning the planet's environmental fortunes around is achievable if businesses, politicians, and citizens work towards a common goal, with the biggest polluters picking up the bill, said the United Nations' environment chief.
Highlighting the dramatic progress made by China and India, Erik Solheim, executive director of UN Environment, urged governments to take a joined-up approach to going green.
“The profit of destroying nature or polluting the planet is nearly always privatized, while the costs of polluting the planet or the cost of destroying ecosystems is nearly always socialized,” he told an international conference on sustainable development at New York's Columbia University on Monday.
“That cannot continue," he said. "Anyone who pollutes, anyone who destroys nature must pay the cost for that destruction or that pollution.”
There has been a “decoupling” of economic development and environmental degradation in many countries, but the World Health Organization now links a quarter of all deaths to pollution which contributes to cancer, heart attacks, and respiratory problems, said Mr. Solheim.
Emphasizing the role of businesses in developing new technologies to address the most pressing needs, Solheim pointed to the explosive growth of companies such as bike-sharing firm Mobike in China.
Meanwhile, the country is rapidly rolling out urban metro systems and a vast high-speed rail network to solve its transport challenge.
The dramatic slide in the cost of solar power is bringing health as well as environmental benefits around the world, Solheim added, while clean energy and technology are helping generate jobs and economic growth in countries like India.
“Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi realized he can electrify the villages and provide any number of green jobs – he can provide high economic growth, he can take care of his people, and take care of the planet by the same policies,” said Solheim.
While reaching the UN environment agency's target of a "pollution-free planet" is achievable, action must be stepped up towards meeting that goal, said Solheim.
“Change is happening," he said. "Economic-wise, we are on the right track, but we need to speed up because the challenge is so big.”
This story was reported by Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Arc_ChrisRS on September 23rd, 2017 at 21:29 UTC »
I work at a chemical facility, where we use some extremely hazardous chemicals. Which in order to produce we use thousands of gallons of water an hour. But a cool thing is, we have a waste water section of the facility that sucks water out if a river but after it is used throughout the facility, it is then toxic water with hazardous material waste in it, so it goes down a sewage system into a holding tank that contains micro organisms genetically modified to eat the waste, and before pushing it back out to the river it is tested. The water going back out to the river is actually cleaner than the actual river that we take in. Pretty cool thing to know.
MasterFubar on September 23rd, 2017 at 18:04 UTC »
That's what they call "tragedy of the commons". Nobody owns the ecosystem, therefore nobody has a profit interest in preserving it.
FF00A7 on September 23rd, 2017 at 17:34 UTC »
Some countries do this. Companies who sell a product are responsible for the waste. It works. For example in the US bottles used to be glass returnables for 5 cents and there was no problem with waste. Everything can be like that. The problem is companies don't want to do it as it doesn't make them money. So they offload onto taxpayer municipal dumps. Privatize the profit, and socialize the expense.