Five things we must achieve as environmental movement turns 50 - Al Jazeera

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This is the moment to reimagine our economic system, reinvent the structures that have caused environmental degradation and create a global society that offers everyone the opportunity to live a healthy, fair life.

Inger Andersen
Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme
Published On 27 May 2022

If world leaders are looking for reasons to commit to real change, they need only look at the many crises unfolding across the globe.

The war in Ukraine is causing death and misery – but also a widening energy and food crisis that we allowed to happen by relying on gas, oil and monocrops. The world is still dealing with the lingering hangover of the pandemic. Meanwhile, climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste – the triple planetary crisis – is already causing pain, ill health and financial ruin, with the potential for much more to come. It is blindingly obvious that we have gotten our societies and economies wrong. Something must change, starting at Stockholm+50.

Stockholm+50 is taking place 50 years after the original Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, which many consider the starting point of the modern environmental movement. The original conference wasn’t just about the environment, of course. It was about how harming the environment harms development and causes poverty, and how poverty reduction is key to addressing environmental harm.

Stockholm+50 is also not just about the environment. It is about how nurturing the environment can lessen poverty and help the world achieve the sustainable development goals. So, this is the moment to reimagine and create a fairer economic system, reinvent the structures that have caused environmental degradation and create a global society that offers everyone the opportunity to live a healthy, fair life. Here are five ideas on how we can do so over the next 50 years – starting with the political commitment to act at Stockholm+50.


Get real about the energy transition

We cannot continue with fossil fuels, but we also must tackle energy poverty. 759 million people have no access to electricity and 2.6 billion people depend on polluting cookstoves and fuels. The answer is to move to renewable energy, coupled with more energy efficiency and expanded energy access. Renewable energy costs are lower than fossil fuel costs. However, just because proven technologies exist, it doesn’t mean the market will respond. Only good public policies and much more investment will make markets move. Equally, countries have different types of resources, be they wind, solar, geothermal or hydropower. It is about horses for courses – backed by international cooperation and multilateralism to connect systems and create cross-border transmission lines, as well as off-grid energy solutions.


Much more: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/5/27/five-things-we-must-achieve-as-environmental-movement-turns-50



It is now up to us to mould our societies and economies in a way that keeps the environment healthy, vibrant and capable of supporting us all, writes Andersen [Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images]