The United Nations Environment Programme's fourth Outlook report (November 2007) finds that major threats to the planet such as climate change, the rate of extinction of species, and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the many that remain unresolved.
All of these threats put humanity at risk. It salutes the world's progress in tackling some relatively straightforward problems, with the environment now much closer to mainstream politics everywhere. But despite these advances, there remain the harder-to-manage issues, the 'persistent' problems.
The report states: ‘There are no major issues raised in Our Common Future [the 1987 Brundtland Report] for which the foreseeable trends are favourable'. Failure to address these persistent problems, UNEP says, may undo all the achievements so far on the simpler issues, and may threaten humanity's survival. But it insists: ‘The objective is not to present a dark and gloomy scenario, but an urgent call for action'.
The report singles out climate change as a 'global priority' demanding political will and leadership. Yet it finds ‘a remarkable lack of urgency' and a ‘woefully inadequate' global response. Other major areas of concern are: water, fish and biodiversity.
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