- الصفحة الرئيسية
- Sustainable Development Goals
- Life on Land
Life on Land
The Singapore story
Singapore has come a long way in its journey towards sustainability. In the 1960s Singapore was like any other developing country of that time – dirty and polluted lacking proper sanitation and facing high unemployment. These challenges were more acute for Singapore given our constraints as a small island city-state with no natural resources.
Dramatic turnaround
One November afternoon the Portland City Council chambers were filled with men and women in suits serious and practical. Standing out in the crowd were two middle school girls poised but nervous. One of them 12-yearold Isabel walked to the testimony table and spoke: “If we don’t take action now we will never grasp the opportunity to stop climate change. This is our future.”
Healthy cities
Health needs to be an integral part of Habitat III the Third UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development and of its outcome.
UN environment at work. District energy: A tried-and-tested answer to modern urban energy problems
In homes and workplaces schools and hospitals technologies such as boilers and air-conditioners consume vast amounts of energy. Indeed half the energy buildings use is for heating and cooling and most of this comes from fossil fuels burned in buildings’ individual boilers and in power plants on the outskirts of our cities. Citizens cities and countries are starting to take real action to move away from this status quo to more sustainable solutions and this monumental shift is cutting greenhouse gas emissions cleaning our air saving money and reducing energy imports.
Empowering the vulnerable
Many cities in the developing world lack the capacity to adapt in the face of emerging climate variability caught in a perfect storm of population growth escalating adaptation needs and substantial development deficits. In South Africa these challenges have been exacerbated by a legacy of formalised racial division that has created widespread social economic and environmental injustice.
Pollution's toll
In 2015 according to the Global Burden of Disease study over 9 million deaths — 16 per cent of the total — were attributable to pollution specifically to lack of access to clean water and sanitation household burning of solid fuels for cooking outdoor air pollution or exposure to lead. Virtually all deaths due to lack of safe water and sanitation and three-quarters of those due to indoor air pollution occurred in either low or low-middle income countries as did half the deaths attributable to outdoor air pollution. Upper-middle income countries accounted for just one-quarter of deaths due to indoor and 40 per cent of deaths associated with outdoor air pollution.
Shaping tomorrow’s cities
I recently visited one of China's eco-cities and was impressed by its highly efficient buildings and use of renewable energy for street lighting. However this newly built city is struggling to attract people largely due to lack of accessibility to public transport and its distance from jobs. The city’s urban planner told me that the isolation of this “eco-enclave” could have been avoided if a more holistic approach had been taken early in the planning stage including considering various aspects of land management urban services connectivity and jobs.
Bouncing back
In these rapidly changing times as the effects of climate change and population growth challenge urban areas we need a new paradigm for cities. They must be resilient to adapt and thrive.
Going for 100%
Oxford County is a sleepy little farming county in the agricultural heart of southwestern Ontario Canada. Some 4000 km away San Diego is a Californian metropolis of 1.4 million dubbed the “City of Villages” for its many distinct communities. Across the Atlantic Osnabrück Germany is home to a Volkswagen car plant and known as the “City of Peace” for its role in ending the 17th century Thirty Years' War.
UN environment at work. Share the road: Putting pedestrians and cyclists first
Every 30 seconds someone dies in a road crash. That’s over 1.2 million people every year dying on the world’s roads. The World Health Organization’s Global Road Safety Report of 2015 shows that worst still half of these deaths are vulnerable road users – pedestrians cyclists and motorcyclists. Tragically 500 children die every day in road crashes.
Reacting to chemicals
Toxic chemicals threaten current and future generations. To protect them we must change course by shifting our chemical practices to a more sustainable model.
Innovation. Redesigning cities
Cities are innovation hubs. They provide the setting the stimulus and the substance for people to come together and exchange and develop new ideas. Cultural diversity universities informal meeting places and key pressure points spur the investigation into new approaches. Access to capital and shorter decision-making processes help the best of them become a reality. In this way cities have spawned so many new trends.
Cities are ecosystems
Cities are often perceived as monuments of human disregard for the natural world the very antithesis of nature. But urban biodiversity has become a sustainability indicator and the importance of urban green governance is increasingly apparent.
UN environment creative. Dreaming up the city we want to live in
Maskbook is an artistic initiative which invites people to take an ordinary dust or pollution mask and transform it from a symbol of fear into a symbol of hope. Chinese artist and photographer Wen Fang gave the initiative its name: “In China since we all wear masks to protect us against the pollution we say that Facebook for us should be renamed Maskbook.”
Reflections
In 1996 when the United Nations held its last conference on the urban environment Habitat II the city of Nairobi had some 800000 inhabitants. At that time the ride from the airport to UN Environment headquarters on the other side of the city was something of a mini-safari.
It starts here
In recent decades there has been an unprecedented increase in the proportion and number of people living in urban environments. In 2014 54 per cent of the world's people were urban dwellers compared to 34 per cent in 1960. This trend is expected to continue while the global population is predicted to grow from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 9.7 billion in 2050 and the size of the urban area expected to triple within the next two decades. It is clear that cities are where our future is going to be decided. This places a large burden of responsibility on us as administrators and decision-makers looking at how we shape our cities now and in the future.
Environmental champion
It is the largest peacetime clean-up operation in history. On 6 August nearly 500 people descended on Mumbai's Versova Beach and removed vast amounts of rubbish.
Secretary-General's Message to the third UN Environment Assembly
We have the right to live in a clean environment. We expect to be able to eat drink and breathe without risking our health. Yet we continue to pollute our air land waterways and oceans. We trigger sand and dust storms due to climate change and environmental degradation. We use dangerous chemicals and substances in everyday objects. We inflict global suffering that is inexcusable preventable and reversible.
Seizing the opportunity
Habitat III the Third International Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development offers the world an exceptional opportunity to rethink the sustainability of our urban model. It is largely recognized that cities have become the main driver of economic development. Yet an analysis of the urbanization of the last two decades reveals that current urban practices are unsustainable: our cities consume 78 per cent of the world’s energy produce more than half of all greenhouse gas emissions and consume much more land than is needed with consequent environmental impacts.
UN environment at work. Ecosystems for urban resilience
Cities depend on their surrounding bio-physical landscape utilising goods and services provided to urban populations from ecosystems. These include provisioning services such as food and water; regulating services such as climate and flood control; supporting services such as nutrient cycling and crop pollination; and cultural services such as connecting urban inhabitants to natural values. The health of the ecological system within and surrounding the city influences the health of the city itself. UN Environment recognises that building the resilience of urban populations depends on how climate and non-climate drivers are tackled together. The management of urban and surrounding peri-urban ecosystems has the potential to contribute significantly to the overall resilience of the city to climate change and other pressures.