World Environment Day 2022

WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY IS THE BIGGEST INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.

Led by UNEP and held annually since 1974, the event has grown to be the largest global platform for environmental outreach, with millions of people from across the world engaging to protect the planet.

CLIMATE CHANGE

There is a 50 per cent chance that global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the next two decades

The climate crisis causes extreme weather events that kill or displace thousands and result in economic losses measured in the trillions

Even under the most optimistic scenario where net-zero is reached by 2050, global warming will continue in the short to medium term, potentially levelling off at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels

NATURE & BIODIVERSITY LOSS

Ecosystem degradation affects the well-being of an estimated 3.2 billion people, or 40 per cent of the world’s population

Every year, we lose ecosystem services worth more than 10 per cent of our global economic output

Food systems are responsible for 80% of biodiversity loss, and 80% of all agricultural land is for livestock and its feed, while providing only 20% of calories

POLUTION

Air pollution causes about 7 million premature deaths every year, one in nine of all deaths. Nine out of 10 people breathe unclean air, making it the most significant environmental health risk of our time

Only 57 per cent of countries have a legal definition for air pollution. In 2019, 92 per cent of people experienced air pollution in excess of safe World Health Organization guidelines

The most recent SDG monitoring cycle revealed that over 3 billion people are at risk because they don’t know enough about the health of surface and groundwater resources

WASTE

Under a business-as-usual scenario, annual plastic waste entering aquatic ecosystems could nearly triple from 9-14 million tons in 2016 to 23-37 million tons by 2040

The total global economic cost of marine plastic pollution on tourism, fisheries and aquaculture is estimated to have been US$6-19 billion in 2018

From 1950 to 2017, an estimated 9.2 billion tons of plastic was produced, 7 billion tons of which has become waste