MGD 7We can save our planet

Ensure Environmental Sustainability

TARGETS

1. Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources

2. Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss

3. Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation

4. Achieve, by 2020, a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

Quick Facts

Some 1.7 billion people have gained access to safe drinking water since 1990. Yet 884 million people worldwide still do not have access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation services, such as toilets or latrines.

The world has missed the 2010 target for biodiversity conservation. Based on current trends, the loss of species will continue throughout this century.

Slum improvements are failing to keep pace with the growing number of urban poor. The absolute number of slum dwellers keeps rising, with some 828 million people living in slums today, even though the share of the urban population living in slums is declining

Sustainable Development

It is a way for people to use resources without the resources running out.

The term used by the Brundtland Commission defined it as development with sustainability that

“ Meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to

meet their own needs”

Sustainability is the capacity to endure.

For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of responsibility, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of stewardship, the responsible management of resource use.

In ecology, sustainability describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time, a necessary precondition for the well-being of humans and other organisms.

Sustainable development has three parts:

We need to balance these 3 parts:

Better Environment

More green spaces

Less noise and

pollution

We need to balance these 3 parts:

Better Economy

More jobs and reasonable prices

No loan sharks

We need to balance these 3 parts:

Better Social Conditions

Good leisure facilities

Less poverty and hunger

The main resources from the human perspective are:

OXYGEN

WATER

ENERGY

FOOD

WATER

Currently towards 35% of human water use is unsustainable, drawing on diminishing aquifers and reducing the flows of major rivers: this percentage is likely to increase if climate change impacts become more severe, populations increase, aquifers become progressively depleted and supplies become polluted and unsanitary.

Water efficiency is being improved on a global scale by

Increased demand management

Improved infrastructure

Improved water productivity of agriculture, minimising the water intensity of goods and services

Concentrating food production in areas of high productivity

Planning for climate change

At the local level, people are becoming more self-sufficient by harvesting rainwater and reducing use of mains water.

FOOD

Sustainable Food System is one that provides healthy food to meet current food needs while maintaining healthy ecosystems that can also provide food for generations to come with minimal negative impact to the environment.

low in meat and saturated fats and high in legumes and other vegetables

low incidence of ailments

and low environmenta

l impact

Associated

BEST DIETS ARE:

OXYGEN AND ENERGY

The atmosphere, which protects the earth from excessive ultraviolet radiation and allows the existence of life is a gaseous mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, water vapor, other elements and compounds, and dust particles.

Heated by the Sun and the Earth's radiant energy, air circulates around the planet and changes the temperature differences.

Oxygen is an important part of the atmosphere, and is necessary to sustain terrestrial life.

HUMAN IMPACT IN THE ENVIRONMENT

Since the industrial revolution the concentrated energy of the Sun stored in fossilized plants as fossil fuels and the intensive exploitation of mineral resources, has been a major driver of technology which, in turn, has been the source of both economic and political power.

It was with the Industrial Revolution when humans began to really change the face of the planet, the nature of its atmosphere and the quality of its water.

Today, unprecedented demand for the rapid human population growth and technological development subject to the environment is producing an ever-accelerating decline in its quality and its ability to support life.

This situation is reflected in these two consequences:

BIODIVERSITY LOSS

CLIMATE CHANGE

BIODIVERSITY LOSS

Biodiversity found on Earth today consists of many millions of distinct biological species, the product of four billion years of evolution.

The rapid loss of species we are seeing today is estimated by experts to

be between 1,000 and 10,000 times

higher than the natural extinction rate

The experts calculate that between 0.01 and 0.1% of all species will become extinct each year.

If the low estimate of the number of species out there is true - i.e. that there are around 2 million different species on our planet** -  then that means between 200 and 2,000 extinctions occur every year.

How does Biodiversity loss affect me and everyone else?

The Earth’s natural assets are made up of plants, animals, land, water, the atmosphere AND humans! Together we all form part of the planet’s ecosystems, which means if there is a biodiversity crisis, our health and livelihoods are at risk too.

Put simply, reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease, and where fresh water is in irregular or short supply.

Biodiversity underpins

the health of the planet

and has a direct impact

on all our lives

Globally, we now require the equivalent of 1.4 planets to support our lifestyles. This is humanity’s current Ecological Footprint - the demand people place upon the natural world.

In 2009, humanity used 40% more resources than nature can regenerate in a year. 

This problem - using resources faster than they can regenerate and creating waste such as CO2 faster than it can be absorbed - is called ecological overshoot.

CLIMATE CHANGE In 2007 climate scientists concluded that there was

at least a 90% probability that atmospheric increase in CO2 was human-induced, mostly as a result of fossil fuel emissions but, to a lesser extent from changes in land use.

"Climate change" means a change of climate attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable periods

Climate change is caused by factors that include oceanic processes (such as oceanic circulation), variations in solar radiation received by Earth, plate tectonics and volcanic eruptions, changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. and human-induced alterations of the natural world; these latter effects are currently causing global warming and "climate change" is often used to describe human-specific impacts.

It is the major, overriding environmental issue of our time, and the single greatest challenge facing environmental regulators. It is a growing crisis with economic, health and safety, food production, security, and other dimensions.

Global Conventions and Conferences to fight climate

change

• COP : Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

• CMP: Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol

• Rio and Rio+20

• COY (Conference of Youth)

Objective

Stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

Climate change is “the defining challenge of our generation”.

It is no longer relevant to discuss whether or not our climate is changing, but rather, how fast changes will occur.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner states:

We are all part of the solution;

Many solutions already exist;

Many solutions provide answers to other challenges.

Costs to limit emissions will be significant, but lower compared to the costs of no action.

• TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

If you have…

one opportunity to talk with the represents/negotiators of your countries, what will you propose to them?

Propose them your own

solutions and demands at

the negotiators.

We want our voice to be heard and taken in consideration

We are the voice of 10 million girls and young women worldwide

We want to be more educated and trained concerning climate change

TAKE ACTION

FIGHT THE CLIMATE

CHANGE

CLIMATE JUSTICE TODAY!