More than 60 per cent of all global ecosystems are damaged or subject to overexploitation. In the developing countries three million people - most of them children under the age of 5 - die each year from illnesses caused by polluted water. Those are some of the core messages of the latest report of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on the global environmental status which is being presented over the world today. According to UNEP in less than 20 years 1.8 billion people will live in regions characterised by water scarcity if we keep up present trends. This corresponds to the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), according to which 40% of all humans worldwide are affected by changed ice and snow storage, shifts and shortages in the water cycle and draught. The messages conveyed by the new UNEP report confirm the deep crisis our planet finds itself in.
The Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Environment Ministry Michael Müller noted on this matter: "The results of the report urgently indicate the necessity to set up effective multilateral institutions capable of tackling these major problems in a purposeful and comprehensive way. Together with more than fifty other states worldwide the Federal Government is striving for the start of a process of negotiations directed at turning UNEP into a powerful UN environment organisation. We need a UN environment organisation which will pool knowledge and expertise, take a leading role in all environmental topics within the UN framework and decisively advance international environmental policies."
The UNEP report, entitled "Environment for Development" cuts across the most important global developments in the four environmental fields atmosphere/climate, biodiversity, water and land and soil. The report is a sequel to the "Our Common Future" study of the Brundtland Commission of 20 years ago which brought the guiding concept of sustainable development to the attention of the international public. This guiding concept is still just as valid today and now that the future of our planet is at stake it needs to be made a core feature of national and international policies.
The UNEP report is the fourth of its kind dealing with the global state of the environment. The reports are published every three to five years as part of the "Global Environment Outlook" (GEO) series.