0 views
World Environment Day - June 5
The National UN Volunteers-India
By. Kunju C Nair - The UN Designate
❄️**WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY - “Our Land. Our Future. We are #GenerationRestoration”
**
With the initiative of the United Nations, the World Environment Day (Eco Day, Environment Day) was established in 1972, with the first day of Stockholm Conference, on Jun. 05, as the particular day of significance. The First World Environment Day was held in 1973, with the theme ‘Only One Earth’.
To create awareness on protection and health of our environment, by taking actions against the strain on our eco-system of our mother-nature, we began to celebrate it annually on June 5, since 1974, with different ‘themes’ in every year.
- In 2022, with due respect to the original theme of the First World Environment Day, ‘Only One Earth’ - focusing on sustainability in harmony with our nature, Sweden hosted the mark of 50 years.
- In 2023, with the theme ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ (#BeatPlasticPollution), hosted by Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire), in partnership with the Netherlands, we celebrated the 50th Anniversary.
This year (2024), focusing on the theme ‘Land Restoration, Desertification and Drought Resilience’, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will host the global celebrations of World Environment Day, under the slogan “Our Land. Our Future. We are #GenerationRestoration” - to deliver the necessary solutions and raise awareness, concentrating to critical environmental challenges affecting communities and ecosystems worldwide.
**ENVIRONMENT**: Environment is our earth, our natural world, consisting of our surroundings in the geographical area, where the living things, such as humans, animals, plants, and other creatures survive; as well as having the non-living things, such as natural resources, physical factors, chemical factors, etc. remain making the environment effective and affective, with a healthy eco-system - providing us climate, sunlight, water, air, and soil - leading to gain the energy and materials needed to sustain.
We, as humans always have to depend on the environment, which provides resources for our survival and struggle for better standards of living. A positive and favourable clean environment always supports the survival of living things with the support of non-living things and vice versa. So that, there is a balancing between the living things and natural resources to protect the environment. We, humans, as an important part of the environment, taking the control, are supposed to contribute to protect and safeguard the environment with maximum positive energies. For our survival we do the production and consumption activities, leading to generation of garbage as a part of the process. Most of the garbage in this process are supposed to be get rid of by the natural process of environment without any emissions. It is our responsibility to manage the garbage, specifically, which are not getting rid of; to protect our environment, otherwise, may lead us along with the other living things difficult for survival.
**UNEP** : We have UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the global authority for the environment with programmes focusing on Climate, Nature, Pollution, sustainable Development, etc. to draw attention to our Environmental Protection and its concerns.
**CONTROL ON CLIMATE CHANGE **: For the control on Climate Change, stipulating the global ceilings for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted on 11 December 1997, in Kyoto, Japan, and entered into force on Feb. 16, 2005, to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is the most important global environmental agreement for combating climate change. With this, the industrialized countries recognized their role for global warming and taking their first step of action on climate change, to cut emissions.
The first ever Climate Change Agreement, adopted in December 2015, the Paris Agreement (also referred as Paris Accords/Paris Climate Accords), an international treaty on climate change, sets out an initiative to control climate change by limiting global warming to below 2⁰C., and pursuing efforts to bring down it to 1.5⁰C. EU and 193 States (including Canada, withdrew from the protocol w.e.f. Dec. 2012) signed the Agreement with a pledge to reduce their emissions to combat global warming.
Due to the persistence of CO₂ in the atmosphere and the consistently sensitive climate system, climatic changes and their effects will continue, even if the human made carbon emissions are stopped. The history of scientific discovery of ‘Climate Change’ began in the early 19th century.
**HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT** : The world of developing countries depends purely on environment for their livelihood and hence their health; and providing them economic growth. When the environment is healthy, the people of the land can expect pure water, natural food and pure air. With the clean environment with no pollution, we can attain a state of :
- No poverty
- Good health and well-being
- Clean air
- Clean water and sanitation
- Affordable and clean energy
- Clean cities / regional locations
- Responsible consumption and production
**CHALLENGES** : For the better results of a Healthy Environment, we have to avoid :
- Soil degradation
- Over-exploitation of natural resources
- Bio-diversity loss
- Deforestation
- Desertification
- Ocean acidification
- Natural hazards
A healthy, better, unspoiled environment with abundant green spaces, forests, rivers, oceans, other water resources, etc. are always good – for better life, healthy life, satisfied life, social life, professional life, education, and all human-life enjoyments with quality life.
**EMISSIONS** : Beyond the wastages of household activities, there are high volume of emissions and wastages, which may pollute the environment such as industrial emissions, vehicle emissions, and more, due to the rapid urbanization, growing industrialization, and other destructive human activities; which have to be considered seriously for the protection of our nature. We individually and collectively can protect our environment to avoid the pollution, by adopting a convenient and accessible system by :
- Recycling the recyclables on a regular basis
- Maintaining separate containers for trashes
- Removing the removable on a regular basis
- Dumping the wastages / garbage according to its nature
- Maintaining Clean sanitization facilities
- Avoiding the plastics and plastic products
- Reusing the wastages for eco-friendly gas generation
**INITIATIVE** : We have various organizations in the Global Level, National Level and Regional Level, to look into the matter of our Environment, with various initiatives to protect from any kind of pollutions and / destructions. Through these organizations, an initiative for regular awareness programmes in the bottom level, from children to elders, and in all classes of people, required to impart the knowledge on the realities of the adverse future to our environment. Besides, as the world is always growing and we are in the transformation of 4th Industrial Revolution, we always advance into next level with novel ideas with innovations and advanced technologies. The young generation always have to be very cautious, energetic and motivated to understand the after effects of any pollution and destruction to our environment and have to adopt advanced technologies and take initiative to prevent and control the pollution and destruction, to protect our environment. Let’s get together to keep our planet clean with love…
“**Our Land. Our Future**. We are #GenerationRestoration” - We have to love our Land with peace, by keeping our surroundings clean, avoiding pollution, encouraging deforestation, planting more trees, protecting the water resources, avoiding soil degradation, preventing desertification and controlling droughts in our planet.
With our efforts, we can revive our planet to grow with prosperity with clean environment. Let’s join together. Let’s celebrate our World Environment Day.
By. Kunju C Nair - The UN Designate
❄️**WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY - “Our Land. Our Future. We are #GenerationRestoration”
**
With the initiative of the United Nations, the World Environment Day (Eco Day, Environment Day) was established in 1972, with the first day of Stockholm Conference, on Jun. 05, as the particular day of significance. The First World Environment Day was held in 1973, with the theme ‘Only One Earth’.
To create awareness on protection and health of our environment, by taking actions against the strain on our eco-system of our mother-nature, we began to celebrate it annually on June 5, since 1974, with different ‘themes’ in every year.
- In 2022, with due respect to the original theme of the First World Environment Day, ‘Only One Earth’ - focusing on sustainability in harmony with our nature, Sweden hosted the mark of 50 years.
- In 2023, with the theme ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ (#BeatPlasticPollution), hosted by Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire), in partnership with the Netherlands, we celebrated the 50th Anniversary.
This year (2024), focusing on the theme ‘Land Restoration, Desertification and Drought Resilience’, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will host the global celebrations of World Environment Day, under the slogan “Our Land. Our Future. We are #GenerationRestoration” - to deliver the necessary solutions and raise awareness, concentrating to critical environmental challenges affecting communities and ecosystems worldwide.
**ENVIRONMENT**: Environment is our earth, our natural world, consisting of our surroundings in the geographical area, where the living things, such as humans, animals, plants, and other creatures survive; as well as having the non-living things, such as natural resources, physical factors, chemical factors, etc. remain making the environment effective and affective, with a healthy eco-system - providing us climate, sunlight, water, air, and soil - leading to gain the energy and materials needed to sustain.
We, as humans always have to depend on the environment, which provides resources for our survival and struggle for better standards of living. A positive and favourable clean environment always supports the survival of living things with the support of non-living things and vice versa. So that, there is a balancing between the living things and natural resources to protect the environment. We, humans, as an important part of the environment, taking the control, are supposed to contribute to protect and safeguard the environment with maximum positive energies. For our survival we do the production and consumption activities, leading to generation of garbage as a part of the process. Most of the garbage in this process are supposed to be get rid of by the natural process of environment without any emissions. It is our responsibility to manage the garbage, specifically, which are not getting rid of; to protect our environment, otherwise, may lead us along with the other living things difficult for survival.
**UNEP** : We have UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the global authority for the environment with programmes focusing on Climate, Nature, Pollution, sustainable Development, etc. to draw attention to our Environmental Protection and its concerns.
**CONTROL ON CLIMATE CHANGE **: For the control on Climate Change, stipulating the global ceilings for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted on 11 December 1997, in Kyoto, Japan, and entered into force on Feb. 16, 2005, to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is the most important global environmental agreement for combating climate change. With this, the industrialized countries recognized their role for global warming and taking their first step of action on climate change, to cut emissions.
The first ever Climate Change Agreement, adopted in December 2015, the Paris Agreement (also referred as Paris Accords/Paris Climate Accords), an international treaty on climate change, sets out an initiative to control climate change by limiting global warming to below 2⁰C., and pursuing efforts to bring down it to 1.5⁰C. EU and 193 States (including Canada, withdrew from the protocol w.e.f. Dec. 2012) signed the Agreement with a pledge to reduce their emissions to combat global warming.
Due to the persistence of CO₂ in the atmosphere and the consistently sensitive climate system, climatic changes and their effects will continue, even if the human made carbon emissions are stopped. The history of scientific discovery of ‘Climate Change’ began in the early 19th century.
**HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT** : The world of developing countries depends purely on environment for their livelihood and hence their health; and providing them economic growth. When the environment is healthy, the people of the land can expect pure water, natural food and pure air. With the clean environment with no pollution, we can attain a state of :
- No poverty
- Good health and well-being
- Clean air
- Clean water and sanitation
- Affordable and clean energy
- Clean cities / regional locations
- Responsible consumption and production
**CHALLENGES** : For the better results of a Healthy Environment, we have to avoid :
- Soil degradation
- Over-exploitation of natural resources
- Bio-diversity loss
- Deforestation
- Desertification
- Ocean acidification
- Natural hazards
A healthy, better, unspoiled environment with abundant green spaces, forests, rivers, oceans, other water resources, etc. are always good – for better life, healthy life, satisfied life, social life, professional life, education, and all human-life enjoyments with quality life.
**EMISSIONS** : Beyond the wastages of household activities, there are high volume of emissions and wastages, which may pollute the environment such as industrial emissions, vehicle emissions, and more, due to the rapid urbanization, growing industrialization, and other destructive human activities; which have to be considered seriously for the protection of our nature. We individually and collectively can protect our environment to avoid the pollution, by adopting a convenient and accessible system by :
- Recycling the recyclables on a regular basis
- Maintaining separate containers for trashes
- Removing the removable on a regular basis
- Dumping the wastages / garbage according to its nature
- Maintaining Clean sanitization facilities
- Avoiding the plastics and plastic products
- Reusing the wastages for eco-friendly gas generation
**INITIATIVE** : We have various organizations in the Global Level, National Level and Regional Level, to look into the matter of our Environment, with various initiatives to protect from any kind of pollutions and / destructions. Through these organizations, an initiative for regular awareness programmes in the bottom level, from children to elders, and in all classes of people, required to impart the knowledge on the realities of the adverse future to our environment. Besides, as the world is always growing and we are in the transformation of 4th Industrial Revolution, we always advance into next level with novel ideas with innovations and advanced technologies. The young generation always have to be very cautious, energetic and motivated to understand the after effects of any pollution and destruction to our environment and have to adopt advanced technologies and take initiative to prevent and control the pollution and destruction, to protect our environment. Let’s get together to keep our planet clean with love…
“**Our Land. Our Future**. We are #GenerationRestoration” - We have to love our Land with peace, by keeping our surroundings clean, avoiding pollution, encouraging deforestation, planting more trees, protecting the water resources, avoiding soil degradation, preventing desertification and controlling droughts in our planet.
With our efforts, we can revive our planet to grow with prosperity with clean environment. Let’s join together. Let’s celebrate our World Environment Day.
