21 ISSUES FOR 21st CENTURY

Ipsita Nandi

M.Phil

IESD

Flow of Content

UNEP

UNEP Foresight process

Process for development of issues

what is emerging issues ?

Issues titles

What are Cross Cutting Issues?

Cross cutting issues in detail

Recap

UNEP?

UNEP was established in 1972 with the mandate:

“To keep under review the world environmental situation in order to

ensure that emerging environmental problems of wide international

significance receive appropriate and adequate consideration by

governments.”

- UN General Assembly 1972

WHAT IS THE UNEP FORESIGHT PROCESS?

PANEL

IDENTIFY AND

RANK EMERGING

ISSUES

Chief Scientists’

Office & UNEP’s

Division of Early

Warning & Assessment

22 Experts from broad

discipline and fields.

PROCESS FOR DEVELOPMENT

1. Canvass of UNEP’S community

68 issues

2. Foresight Panel meetings held

debated 95 issues

Result 21 issues selected

EMERGING ISSUES

Critical to the global environment

Related to environment

Large spatial scale

Priority in UNEP’S Program over next 3 yrs

Recognized as very important by the scientific community,

but not yet received adequate attention from the policy

community

Table 1: Outline of 21 Issues

ISSUE TITLE RANK

Aligning Governance to the Challenges of Global Sustainability 1

Transforming Human Capabilities for the 21st Century 2

Food Safety and Food Security for 9 Billion People 3

Broken Bridges: Reconnecting Science and Policy 4

Catalyzing Rapid and Transformative Changes in Human Behavior towards

the Environment.

5

New Insights on Water-Land Interactions: Shift in the Management

Paradigm?

6

Integrating Biodiversity Across the Environmental and Economic Agendas 7

Accelerating the Implementation of Environmentally-Friendly Renewable

Energy Systems

7

Managing the Unintended Consequences of climate change mitigation. 7

Minimizing Risks of Novel Technologies and Chemicals 10

Boosting Urban Sustainability and Resilience 11

Source: UNEP, 2012

Contd..

The New Rush for Land 12

Potential Collapse of Oceanic Systems Requires Integrated Ocean

Governance

13

Solving the Impending Scarcity of Strategic Minerals and Avoiding Electronic

Waste

14

Shortcutting the Degradation of Inland Waters in Developing Countries 15

Acting on the Signal of Climate Change in the Changing Frequency of

Extreme Events

16

The Environmental Consequences of Decommissioning Nuclear Reactors 17

New Concepts for Coping with Creeping Changes and Imminent Thresholds 18

Coastal Ecosystems: Addressing Increasing Pressures with Adaptive

Governance

19

Coping with Migration Caused by New Aspects of Environmental Change 20

Managing the Impacts of Glacier Retreat 21

Source: UNEP, 2012

ISSUES… A BRIEF OUTLOOK

COVERS THE MAJOR ENVIRONMENTAL THEMES

Food and Land

Freshwater and Marine Biodiversity

Climate Change

Energy

Waste and Technology

ALSO, INCLUDE CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES

Environmental Governance

Human behavioral change

Bridging Science and Policy

CROSS CUTTING ISSUES

.

Issues that affect all area of concern within their context.

Aligning Government to the challenges of Global

Sustainability (ranked #1)

WHY

Piecemeal approach

Agreements lacks….

• Overall Integration

• Effective Coordination

• Effective foresight

Decision making ….

• Too little representative

• Little accountability

INEFFECTIVE

Source: { Young et.al 2008)Newell and Bulkeley (2010)}

How to solve it

Public debate

Qualified majority vote

Constitutional framework for sustainable development

Implementation of sustainability policies in smaller and

poorer countries

Stronger involvement of civil society

Why

Shortage of Skilled labor

Unsuitable pedagogic methods till date

Source: Beddoe et.al 2009

How to solve it

Train the workers

Change educational methods

Train the managers

Encourage research to bridge the gap

Broken Bridges: Reconnecting Science and

Policy (Ranked #4)

WHY

Failed Communication

Inaccessibility Of Scientific Literature

Less Meetings

Lack of Interest

Source: Campbell et.al 2007Choi et.al 2005

How to solve it

Science-society-policy

Organize more meetings

Integrated assessment method

Environmental scenario analysis

Increase access to scientific literature

Recap

3 cross cutting issues….

Aligning Governance to the Challenges of Global Sustainability

(Ranked#1)

Transforming Human Capabilities for the 21st

century: Meeting global environmental challenges and moving

towards a Green Economy (Ranked #2)

Broken Bridges: Reconnecting Science and Policy (Ranked #4)

There are problems, there are solution

need is to act…

Thank you….