Unsustainable food and fossil fuel production is responsible for causing environmental costs of $5 billion per hour, as warned in the new UN report.
According to the Global environmental prospects (GEO), developed by 200 researchers for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), climate change, environmental pollution and destruction of nature are not the only threats to the environment.
Professor Robert Watson, the co-chair of the review, said: “They are all undermining our economy, food security, water security, human health and they are also [national] security problems, which lead to conflict in many parts of the world.”
“This is an urgent call to transform our human systems now before collapse becomes inevitable,” said Prof. Edgar Gutiérrez-Espeleta, another co-chair and former Minister of the Environment in Costa Rica.
As the world population grows, environmental crises are worsening due to high demand for food and fuel.
Experts say it is possible to build a sustainable world, but to make it happen, political courage, the global transformation of governance and finance are the need of the hour, “before collapse becomes inevitable.”
“Science is good. The solutions are known. What is needed is the courage to act at the scale and speed that history demands,” Gutiérrez-Espeleta said, adding that the window for action “closed quickly.”
The report also listed the largest losses, including $45 trillion in damage caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The food system also caused the largest costs: $20 trillion.
According to the report, to tackle climate change, fossil fuel subsidies must be abolished, leading to a one-third reduction in emissions.
