UN Environment Acting Executive Director Joyce Msuya has issued a forceful call to action ahead of the Fourth UN Environment Assembly, which will gather in Nairobi from 11-15 March.
“Time is running short,” Msuya wrote in a letter to United Nations Member States. “We are past pledging and politicking. We are past commitments with little accountability. What’s at stake is life, and society, as the majority of us know it and enjoy it today.”
Citing recent United Nations reports, Msuya stressed the urgency of addressing climate change and other pressing global challenges.
The call comes as environment ministers from across the globe prepare to travel to Nairobi to participate in the world’s highest-level environmental forum. Negotiations at the Fourth UN Environment Assembly are expected to tackle critical issues such as stopping food waste, promoting the spread of electric cars, and tackling the crisis of plastic pollution in our oceans, among many other pressing challenges.
“It is time for us to truly give shape to the fundamental transformations that will be required to sustain human life – transformations in our food systems, energy systems, waste systems, economic systems – and indeed our value systems,” Msuya wrote.
She outlined five key entry points for driving the transformative changes that the planet requires: circularity, a New Deal for Nature, cities, clean cooling and renewable energy.
Seizing on the theme of the fourth UN Environment Assembly, Msuya called attention to the many opportunities to be found in the shift to a more sustainable world.
Msuya closed the letter with a strong and direct appeal to the UN Member States, urging them to come to the Environment Assembly with courage and determination to fight for a sustainable future.
“Let us all work together to craft solutions with resolve, that transform our level of ambition. Let us strive for resolutions that demand that all of us – UN Environment, our Member States, our partners in civil society and the private sector, our citizens – make the kinds of changes that humanity needs to thrive.”
Original source: EU Environment
Published on 06 March 2019
