The UNEP synthesis report, Making Peace with Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies, ‘co-led by Sir Bob Watson FRS and co-authored by Prof Rachel Warren, who are both from the Tyndall Centre is being launched Thursday 18th February at 4pm.
The resulting synthesis communicates how climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution can be tackled jointly within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals. The report serves to translate the current state of scientific knowledge into crisp, clear and digestible facts-based messages that the world can relate to and follow up on. It first provides an Earth diagnosis of current and projected human-induced environmental change, by putting facts and interlinkages in perspective, including by using smart infographics. In building on this diagnosis, the report identifies the shifts needed to close gaps between current actions and those needed to achieve sustainable development. The analysis is anchored in current economic, social and ecological reality and framed by economics and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. By synthesizing the latest scientific findings from the global environmental assessments, the report communicates the current status of the world’s urgent issues and opportunities to solve them.
“There are three novel aspects to the report. The first is that it brings together the environmental problems of climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation and pollution together. Secondly, it goes further than earlier reports by providing a solution to the problem, and being very clear about how various societal actors (governments, businesses, financial organisations, and individuals for example) can all be a part of that solution, which specific actions for each. Here, the benefit of looking at all these problems together becomes evident – many actions benefit more than one of these problems, yet there are some kinds of actions that might help with one problem whilst being very detrimental to another – so a holistic approach is needed to avoid perverse outcomes focused on one of these environmental problems only. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it advocates a fundamental change in Man’s relationship with the environment – we need to put nature at the heart of all of our decision making, and work with nature to solve these problems,” said Rachel.
The public link to live stream the launch is here.