Nations must join hands on ecological challenges

A new UN report once again shows the global nature of the environment crisis

Last week, the United Nations released a landmark report, The Global Environment Outlook (GEO), which made two important points that all national governments need to take seriously: One, environment damage (emissions, chemicals polluting drinking water, and the accelerating destruction of ecosystems) is responsible for a quarter of premature deaths across the world. Second, there is a growing chasm between rich and poor countries as rampant overconsumption, pollution and food waste in the developed world is leading to hunger and poverty elsewhere.

In the past one year, there have been several reports that have warned national governments about the perils of ignoring such mounting challenges. While each of these reports have appraised the scope and nature of different challenges — from air pollution to biodiversity — the most important takeaway from all these reports is that many of these are global problems. Many environmental problems, as Israeli academic and author of the bestseller, Yuval Noah Harari, says, have no national solutions. Global cooperation is the first and necessary step to successfully face these challenges. With many world leaders such as US President Donald Trump showing a lack of interest in combating climate change, the road ahead will not be easy. Unfortunately, the brunt of such irresponsible behaviour will be borne by developing countries such as India.