UNECE Executive Secretary Olga Algayerova was in Kyiv on Sunday 9 and Monday 10 October to meet with Government officials to discuss UNECE support to the reconstruction of Ukraine. Since the start of the war, upon official requests for assistance from the government, UNECE has been providing support to the country in its mandated areas of activities.
The importance of clean air for the quality of our lives has recently been recognised by the United Nations General Assembly. What is more is that in the General Assembly session at the end of July, Member States overwhelmingly adopted a resolution recognising that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, including air, land and water, is a human right.
Accidental water pollution, which can be sudden and heavy as a result of industrial accidents, endangers people and the environment where chemical activities take place near a river, lake or water body. Accidental water pollution events can be triggered by natural hazards, such as floods, lightning, earthquakes, landslides or storms, especially in transboundary basins.
The 9th Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference closed today in Nicosia, Cyprus, with the adoption of a ministerial declaration affirming countries’ commitment to transition to a green economy with sustainable infrastructure at its core.
The declaration also calls on countries to join and commit actions under the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative, and underlines the need for more and stronger education for sustainable development.
As Ministers from across the UNECE region gather in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia to outline new initiatives to work towards a sustainable and ecological future at the 9th Environment for Europe Conference (5-7 October), the final report on the Batumi Action for Cleaner Air (BACA), adopted 6 years ago at the 8th Conference, demonstrates the success of voluntary commitments to deliver concrete environmental improvements.
New assessment reveals progress on air quality and protected areas, but calls for urgent action to tackle emissions, waste, pollution and biodiversity loss
A circular economy and sustainable infrastructure offer solutions
How to step up environmental protection, reduce resource use, cut pollution and foster the shift to a circular economy that is needed to make sustainable development a reality? These will be some of the topics at the core of debates when Ministers from the 56 countries of the UNECE region gather in Nicosia, Cyprus, for the Ninth "Environment for Europe” Ministerial Conference (5-7 October).
The extreme heat and drought that the region experienced this summer is a bleak reminder that current commitments under the Paris Agreement and those made last year at COP26 are nowhere near what is needed to limit global warming to below 1.5°C. Inaction is a policy choice that will lead to greater, possibly insurmountable, challenges in the future.
With the review of the amended Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-Level Ozone (Gothenburg Protocol) about to enter its final round, expert groups under the UNECE Air Convention are now discussing latest findings to assess the effectiveness of measures.
All too often we take the air we breathe and share for granted. Only when we breathe very polluted air, when we can smell and see the pollution, do we realize that the air around us is a precious good that needs to be protected, much like the water we drink. On the International Day of Clean Air for blue skies on 7 September, let’s take a moment to reflect on the air we breathe.