UNEA 5 Daily Bulletin
Tune in to the
Below please find links to daily bulletins from key sessions around UNEA-5. These highlights document the global efforts to tackle climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and safe chemicals management as the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic. All reports are written by the Earth Negotiations Bulletin team from IISD.
Event highlights
Photo by IISD / Kiara Worth
The United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) is the world’s highest-level decision-making body on the environment. It brings together representatives of the 193 Member States of the UN, businesses, civil society leaders and other stakeholders to agree on policies that will tackle climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.
Glacier collapse in India a worrying sign of what’s to come
Photo: REUTERS/Anshree Fadnavis / 11 Feb 2021
A deadly flood in northern India, sparked by a cratering glacier, was not an isolated incident but the result of a rapidly warming planet, say experts. They warn the disaster, which has left over 140 feared dead, is a precursor of what is to come unless drastic measures are taken to slow climate change.
The flood this week in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand was caused by a glacier breaking away and falling into the valley, sending a surge of water downstream that engulfed villages and workers at a hydroelectric plant.
UN Member States will gather virtually this February 22-23 for the Fifth Session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-5). This is the world’s top environmental decision-making body attended by government leaders, businesses, civil society and environmental activists.
It’s a critical meeting: the planet is in crisis and nature must be at the heart of global efforts to build back better after the COVID-19 pandemic. There will be a host of related events happening over the coming days.
This feed will tell you everything you need to know about UNEA-5 with links to live sessions, new reports and critical debates as they happen. Stay tuned!
Solutions for a planet in crisis
Unsplash/Mark Divier / 20 Jan 2021
Speech prepared for delivery at the London School of Economics Public Lecture
Right now, COVID-19 is front and centre of our concerns. The pandemic has devasted lives and economies. It has highlighted income inequalities, with the rich growing richer and the poor growing poorer. It has put in sharp relief the environmental inequalities facing minorities. But as we seek to overcome this terrible pandemic, we must do so in the knowledge that it is not something we can just fix, wash our hands of and return to normal. Because it is “normal” that brought us to where we are today. The pandemic has shown that we must rethink our relationship with nature, as humanity’s destruction of wild spaces is implicated in the emergence of many illnesses that jump from animals to humans.
Can coral reef restoration save one of the most vulnerable ecosystems to climate change?
Photo by CRIB / 18 Jan 2021
Coral reefs are some of the most ecologically and economically valuable ecosystems on our planet. Covering less than 0.1 per cent of the world’s ocean, they support over 25 per cent of marine biodiversity and serve at least a billion people with a wide range of ecosystem services such as coastal protection, fisheries production, sources of medicine, recreational benefits, and tourism revenues.
We can’t afford to lose this valuable ecosystem. As we strive to accelerate climate action to halt global warming, there is great urgency to protect our remaining reefs. How to do this is the subject of a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI), which concludes that well-planned, well-funded and long-term coral reef restoration can be a useful tool to support coral reef resilience.