Welcome to the United Nations
The following contribution is sent in response to the invitation from the President of ECOSOC, H.E. Ambassador Oh Joon, for UNEA to offer substantive inputs to the 2016 HLPF showcasing UNEA’s contribution towards the 2030 Agenda in general, and particularly for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and respective targets that are substantial to UNEA’s mandate.
The Second Session of UNEA convened on 23-27 May 2016 and adopted 24 resolutions on key environmental issues, including a resolution on the “Delivering on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” The relevant outputs of UNEA to the theme of leaving no one behind are included in the summary below.
UNEA considered and guided UNEP’s alignment of its strategic planning with the 2030 Agenda and its 17 SDGs through the Medium Term Strategy (MTS) and Programme of Work (PoW). In its “Vision 2030” captured in the MTS, UNEP aims to reduce environmental risks and increase the resilience of societies and the environment as a whole with the overarching goal of promoting the environmental dimension of sustainable development, and bringing socio-economic benefits. UNEP’s key priority areas (7 sub-programmes) also provide the building blocks for addressing the SDGs. Each has developed an outcome map towards a 2030 objective in response to relevant SDGs and targets and has aligned its indicators at impact level with relevant SDGs indicators allowing for the monitoring of the environmental dimension and reporting to UNEA, the General Assembly, ECOSOC and the HLPF. In this regard, UNEA resolution L.6 “Delivering on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” calls for increased synergies across UNEP sub-programmes in order to contribute more effectively to the 2030 Agenda.
I.INTRODUCTION
(a)Environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda and SDGs
1.The 2030 Agenda for sustainable development represents a paradigm shift to replace today’s growth-based economic model with a new model that aims to achieve sustainable and equitable economies and societies worldwide and ensure greater public participation in decision-making, in line with Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. The 2030 Agenda is strongly grounded in international human rights standards and sets out a transformative vision for people and planet‐centred, human rights‐based, and gender‐sensitive sustainable development. It has equality and non‐discrimination as its centrepiece with the overall aim “to leave no one behind” by “reaching the furthest behind first” and by ensuring that SDG targets are met “for all nationals and peoples and for all segments of society”.
2.The environment plays a pivotal role in lifting people out of poverty, in ending hunger, in growing our economies, in building peaceful, just and inclusive societies, and in promoting the health of our people and this planet.
3.More than half of the Sustainable Development Goals have an environmental focus or address the sustainability of natural resources: poverty, health, food and agriculture, water and sanitation, human settlements, energy, climate change, sustainable consumption and production, oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. Over 86 targets are concerned with environmental sustainability, including at least one in each of the 17 Goals.
4.Integration across all SDGs means that progress on one cannot be achieved without progress on the other Goals. For example, building resilience and reducing vulnerability in human populations (SDG 1) requires access to food (SDG 2) and sustainable food production systems (SDG7 7), a reduction in losses owing to disasters (SDG 11) and a strengthened resilience to climate change (SDG 13). The emphasis on the interlinkanges between the three dimensions is present in all 17 SDGs, making the 2030 Agenda truly integrated.
(b)Global environment outlook in the context of the 2030 Agenda, including linkages between environmental quality and human rights, health and wellbeing
5.The 2030 Agenda highlights critical links between development, the environment, wellbeing and the full enjoyment of a wide range of human rights. The mutually supportive nature of those linkages has several dimensions. Environmental degradation is felt daily by millions of people around the world, including the most vulnerable, and negatively impacts ecosystems and biodiversity. Unsustainable patterns of production and consumption threaten our ability to achieve sustainable development and to successfully meet the challenges of the future.
6.Ecosystems and the services they provide, such as food, water, disease management, climate regulation, and spiritual fulfilment, are preconditions for the full enjoyment of human rights, including rights to life, health, water, and food. At the same time, efforts to promote environmental sustainability can only be effective if they occur in the context of enabling legal frameworks, and are greatly informed by the exercise of certain human rights, such as the rights to information, public participation in decision‐making and access to justice
7. The Earth System provides the basis for all human societies and their sustainable development. People need clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, healthy food to eat, energy to produce and transport goods, and natural resources that provide the raw materials for all these services. However, the more than 7 billion humans alive today are collectively consuming the Earth’s resources at accelerating rates and intensities that surpass the capacity of its systems to sustainably absorb and neutralize the adverse effects on the environment.
8.Current consumption and production patterns and the depletion of natural resources and environmental degradation associated with it are already constraining the overall prospects for sustainable development, human rights and wellbeing. In 2012, an estimated 12.6 million premature deaths globally were attributable to the environment that is responsible for 23 per cent of all deaths worldwide. The higher prevalence of non-communicable diseases is attributable to exposure to chemicals, poor air quality and unhealthy lifestyles.
9.The 2016 regional GEO assessments greatly contribute to clarifying the link between development and environment. While development can lead to both environmental improvements and environmental degradation, policy decisions on development can result in health improvements or impacts. Policy pathways do exist to improve both environmental quality and human health, and regional collaboration on development can be the key to realising these co-benefits.
(c)Overview of UNEA and UNEP contributions to the 2030 Agenda
10.With its overarching environmental mandate, universal membership and full involvement of major groups and stakeholders, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) constitutes the world’s highest-level decision-making body on the environment. The second session of UNEA was prepared under the overarching theme “Delivering on the environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” with the expectation of ensuring a contribution to the implementation, follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda, as well as addressing the most critical environmental challenges facing the world today upon which the realization of sustainable development is dependent.
11.In its resolution L.6 “Delivering on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” UNEA commits to contributing to the effective implementation of the environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in an integrated manner, through setting the global environmental agenda, providing overarching policy guidance and defining policy responses to address emerging environmental challenges, undertaking policy review, dialogue and exchange of experiences, fostering partnerships for achieving environmental goals and resource mobilization. Relevant UNEA-2 outcomes, including its 25 adopted resolutions and decisions, are therefore expected to be transmitted to the 2016 session of HLPF to inform its deliberations and be integrated into its respective outcomes.
12.UNEA-2 resolution L.6 “Delivering on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” also highlights UNEP’s important role in the follow-up and review of the progress in implementing the environmental dimension of sustainable development including the provision of policy relevant information through assessment processes such as the Global Environment Outlook, as a contribution to the Global Sustainable Development Report, and to the annual Sustainable Development Goals Report, all of which should support HLPF’s work. In this regard, UNEA commits to convey the main messages of its sessions to the High Level Political Forum to support its function in the follow up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The resolution requests UNEP’s the Executive Director to prepare a report for consideration by the United Nations Environment Assembly at its next session, reporting on the Programme’s contribution to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with a view to forwarding the report to the HLPF for its consideration.
13.UNEP has undertaken a consequent work to avoid duplication in the follow-up and review processes by analysing the synergies between Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and SDGs. This was mainly done through a mapping of both MEAs and SDGs indicators which is available and accessible on the SDG portal (uneplive.unep.org/portal). The exercise helps Member States to streamline their follow-up and review with ongoing commitments and shows the important contribution of the MEAS in the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda through reporting on the SDG Global Indicator Framework.
14.The inaugural Science-Policy Forum, held in the framework of UNEA-2 concluded that policy relevance and legitimacy need to be embedded into the science-policy interface, with a geographical and expert balance and an inclusive co-design process. It was agreed, that the time lapse between knowledge and action needs to be shortened by joining forces across national boundaries, promoting a closer interaction between disciplines and across different contexts. It was suggested that the science-policy interface needs to develop a range of boundary organisations to support cross-linking and communications between the scientific research and the policy communities.
II.RESPONSES TO THE ECOSOC PRESIDENT’S TEMPLATE
(a)Assessment of the situation regarding the principle of “ensuring that no one is left behind” at the global level
15.In an effort to ensure that no one is left behind, UNEP has identified human rights and equity as one of its four core principles underpinning its approach to the 2030 Agenda. It has long recognised and elaborated the main dimensions of the interrelationship between human rights and environmental protection and recognises its responsibility to articulate and advocate the human rights-environment linkages to UN System entities in the context of the 2030 Agenda. UNEP has worked towards the development of a policy guidance to be able to integrate human rights into its organisational culture and programmatic activities, and effectively leverage its contribution as part of the UN System to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. The Policy guidance supports internal training and capacity building, expanding the evidence base, and systematically broadening UNEP’s Partnerships to achieve the integration of human rights. It is anticipated that the culmination of these efforts will enable UNEP to fully realise the complementarity of environment-human rights linkages in the development of its next Medium Term Strategy and contribute to the achievement of the Agenda and the 17 SDGs for all.
16.UNEA-2 Resolution L.6 on Delivering on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development stresses the importance of respecting, protecting and promoting human rights and gender equality and recognising the role of indigenous peoples and local communities in delivering the environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda.
17.The interrelationships between human-rights and the three dimensions of sustainable development need to be recognised, understood, taken into account and fully embraced for “ensuring that no one is left behind” in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Environmental sustainability and the promotion of human rights are closely intertwined and have complementary objectives that are at the core of sustainable development.
18.The right to a healthy environment is now recognised in many national constitutions and regional instruments, with over 90 national constitutions recognising some form of environmental rights since the mid-1970s. Many subnational governments also recognise such rights in the absence of their lack of recognition through a national constitution. About two thirds of the constitutional rights refer to health; alternative formulations include rights to a clean, safe, favourable or wholesome environment. Some States have included more detailed rights, such as rights to receive information and to participate in decision‐making on environmental matters.
19.Efforts tend to focus primarily on curative rather than preventive approaches with regards to health. With 23% of the total premature deaths being linked to environmental and modifiable factors in 2012 (12.6 millions deaths globally), affecting primarily the poorest who depend most on natural resources, other complementary strategies need to be put into place to improve health and well-being. Poor air and water quality are among the primary environmental risks that affect health worldwide. However, exposure to hazardous chemicals, through the inadequate workplace and waste management, climate change, ecosystem degradation, unplanned urbanization and unsustainable lifestyles also add to the burden of disease and adversely impact health and well-being.
20.The world’s poorest 3.5 billion people tend to rely directly on the environment for their basic needs, such as water, food and shelter. The degradations of these ecosystem services affect them most as they have no alternatives. Poor people, children and the elderly are particularly at risk. Poor air quality is especially burdensome on the poor, women, and children. Indoor air quality affects women and children as they are exposed to fumes from cooking, and outdoor air pollution affects the poor who are unable to protect themselves by moving around in cars or by means of other protection, and those who make a living on the streets such as street hawkers, auto cycle drivers and others.
21.While environmental vulnerabilities are often related to socioeconomic conditions, the environmental dimension of the principle of “ensuring that no one is left behind” goes beyond it. The global, universal and integrated nature of environmental challenges implies also that the consequences of environmental degradation have the potential to affect everyone at unacceptable levels. Furthermore, environmental vulnerabilities can be exacerbated by factors that have the potential to impact all segments of human societies such as geographic conditions, natural disasters, conflicts or lack of governance over natural resources. From the environmental dimension of sustainable development, “ensuring that no one is left behind” therefore not only means targeting actions to enhance the access to natural assets for the poor and vulnerable, as well as to mitigate their exposure to environmental degradation; but it also implies supporting all countries and implementing universal/global commitments to halt environmental degradation, protect the Earth Systems and restore natural resources.
22.Undertaking actions in key environmental areas such as combating climate change, protecting and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity, safeguarding the oceans, improving soils and water, promoting sustainable lifestyles, increasing resource efficiency, reducing pollution and waste, boosting renewable energy and enhancing environmental governance would not only support the direct achievement of most SDGs, but ultimately benefit the poorest and most vulnerable by reducing the environmental risks and costs they bear and promoting a more equal distribution of the socioeconomic benefits derived from the sustainable use of natural resources and the productive opportunities arising from the transition towards a low-carbon future.
23.The definition of those “left behind” varies depending on the type of intervention. Although the common methodology used looks at income distribution, interventions with regards to environment and health linkages tend to take into account the issue of vulnerability, to environmental degradation, targeting those which are most vulnerable to climate change or natural disasters, and to consequences of poor environmental quality such as children. Climate change impacts indeed adds to vulnerability, having different effects on the already endangered livelihoods and the safety of both men and women, as a result of the further reduced quantity and quality of water and sanitation, degradation of the soil, emerging and re-emerging diseases, loss of lives and properties in natural disasters, and forced or voluntary migration. Over half a billion children live in extremely high flood occurrence zones, and nearly 160 million children live in areas of high, or extremely high, drought severity.
24.However, vulnerability to environment and health inequities are linked to many other social and economic factors. The social and economic position of individuals, in relation to social class, age, gender and ethnicity, as well as education, occupation, livelihood and income levels. These factors determine where people live, what they eat, how and when in the life cycle they are exposed to pollution, and what options they have to change their conditions.
(b)Identification of gaps, areas requiring urgent attention, risks and challenges
25.In May 2016, the United Nations Environment Assembly considered the linkages between environmental quality and human rights, health and wellbeing. Beyond this thematic focus, the scientific evidence put before UNEA revealed the broader drivers of these linkages, which include dynamics related to environmental sustainability such as unplanned urbanization, unhealthy and wasteful lifestyles, exposure to chemicals, unsustainable consumption and production patterns, pollution, depletion and unequal access to natural resources such as water and energy.
26.In this context, air pollution has been identified as the world’s largest single environmental risk to health: some 7 million people across the world die prematurely each year as a result of everyday exposure to poor air quality with some groups being more affected than others. In some developing countries, simply preparing a meal is a major risk to health because of indoor air pollution with 4.3 million deaths mostly women and children attributed to household air pollution arising from cooking with solid fuels. Outdoor air pollution disproportionally affects the poor who are unable to protect themselves by moving around in cars or by means of other protection, and those who make a living on the streets such as street hawkers and auto cycle drivers. Air pollution is directly addressed in SDG-3 (3.9), 11 (11.6) and 12 (12.4).
27.Lack of access to clean water and sanitation also reveals environmental factors that greatly affect human wellbeing. It causes 58 per cent of cases of diarrheal diseases in low and middle-income countries. Unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or insufficient hygiene result in 3.5 million deaths worldwide, representing 25 per cent of the premature deaths of children younger than 14. Water and sanitation targets are mostly reflected in relation to SDG 6, but the 2030 Agenda also addresses the critical role of water in achieving sustainable development through a number of other interlinked goals covering aspects of health, sustainable consumption and production, urbanization and oceans. The following goals and targets are particularly relevant: Goal 3 targets 3.3 and 3.9, 11 targets 11.5, 12 target 12.4, 14 target 14.1, 15 target 15.1.
28.Exposure to waste and chemicals represents another environmental area requiring further attention and implementation throughout the 2030 Agenda and relevant SDGs such as 3, 6, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15. The 50 biggest active dumpsites affect the daily lives of 64 million people especially the poorest groups leaving in informal settlements. Some 107,000 people die annually from exposure to asbestos and 654,000 died from exposure to lead in 2010. As a result of their rapid growth and development and greater exposure relative to body weight, fetuses and children are particularly affected by exposure to chemicals and pollutants. It is estimated that a mother can pass as much as 33 per cent of her chemical body burden to her child.
29.Climate change continues to represent a major environmental driver that threatens the prospects for achieving global sustainable development. In addition to risks estimated on the basis of different temperature-increase scenarios, there is a greater understanding of the effects of climate change on crucial aspects of the 2030 agenda and human wellbeing such as personal safety, health and nutrition —which are addressed in SDGs 2, 3 and 11, among others. Increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters threaten to derail efforts to eradicate poverty with Small Island Developing States, indigenous groups, smallholder farmers, pastoralists as well as women and children being disproportionally affected. Since the first session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1995, 606,000 lives have been lost and 4.1 billion people have been injured, left homeless or in need of emergency assistance as a result of weather-related disasters. Cautious estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) under a medium-high emissions scenario indicate that 250,000 additional deaths could potentially occur each year between 2030 and 2050 as a result of climate change.
30.The degradation of ecosystems, addressed by SDGs 14 and 15, also presents important links to human wellbeing and related SDGS such as 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 16. For instance, ecosystem degradation entails major health-related consequences. Microplastics and nanoplastics in marine ecosystems may not be biodegradable, as they can sink to the ocean floor where they are not exposed to the sunshine required for biodegradation. Excessive nutrients in fresh and coastal receiving waters from land-based activity leads to eutrophication, negatively affecting ecosystems, and freshwater and marine resource productivity, thereby impacting food security, livelihoods and health negatively especially among the poorest groups that are often the most dependent on natural resources and the environment. Zoonotic diseases, linked to ecosystem disruption, such as avian influenza, Rift Valley fever and Ebola, have also become the source of major pandemics. The outbreak of Zika, for example, is potentially exacerbated as a result of inadequate waste collection and management – the proliferation of tires, plastics and cans in which water collects and which serve as breeding sites for the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
(c)Valuable lessons learned on ensuring that no one is left behind
31.From the perspective of the environmental dimension of sustainable development and in light of the principle of ensuring that no one is left behind, addressing environmental vulnerabilities depends on their integration with social and economic drivers at both the policymaking and implementation levels. This can best be achieved by adopting a human-rights based approach in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Applying the rights‐based approach for dealing with environmental protection and sustainable development draws attention to key elements and may serve to:
- Help further universal values and norms in support of conservation and social justice.
- Bring greater clarity about the underlying causes of positive or negative impacts of various economic or other activities on human rights and the environment, and the impact of the enjoyment or lack of enjoyment of human rights on environmental protection, thus allowing for better choices among policies and projects.
- Improve outcomes by facilitating positive synergies, and generally improving the governance of natural resources.
- Help to provide common vision and frame activities, programmes and policies above and beyond immediate group interests/divisions by integrating social concerns with environmental goals, drawing on a universal set of norms specifying the rights and responsibilities of all actors.
- Be an effective instrument to ensure the accountability of governments, the private sector and environmental or human rights organizations with regard to the impact of their activities on the environment and human rights.
- Provide stronger cross‐sectoral links, which can further efforts toward sustainable development, by providing a framework to integrate social development, economic development, and environmental protection.
- Demonstrate the positive contribution of conserving a safe and healthy environment to human rights and, conversely, increase awareness of the negative impact on human rights of failing to protect critical natural resources and biodiversity.
- Ensure that the science policy interface is mindful of human context and values and alternative views of nature when developing a coherent logic for policy-making.
- Explicitly refer to and take into account citizen science as well as traditional and indigenous knowledge in the science-policy interface, encourage inter-disciplinarity in natural, social and environmental sciences and look for coherence across policy areas.
BOX 1 – An integrated vision to ensure that no one is left behind
In developing countries, the return on investment in water and sanitation services is estimated at between $5 and $28 per dollar invested. Investments targeted at sustainable, climate change-resilient water, sewage, and solid waste management and facilities can generate important health co-benefits in terms of sanitation by decreasing risks of exposure to infectious agents and water-borne disease for local communities, relieving the burden on public health and increasing labor productivity.
Healthy and sustainable diets could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions (by the equivalent of ca. 0.3 to 0.6 PgC/yr compared to current trends), and protect biodiversity by greatly reducing requirements to expand cropland area to feed a growing global population. Healthy diets are also generally associated with greatly reduced incidence of disease (diabetes, cancer and coronary) and mortality from all causes compared to diets rich in red meat. Investments in preventative workplace health programmes of around $18 to $60 per worker could reduce sick leave absences by 27 per cent.
Benefits from the elimination of lead in gasoline on a global scale have been estimated at $2.45 trillion per year, or 4 per cent of global GDP saving an estimated 1 million premature deaths per year. The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (1985) and its Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987) resulted in the successful phase-out of nearly 100 ozone-depleting substances. As a result, up to 2 million cases of skin cancer and many millions of eye cataracts may be prevented each year by 2030. Moreover, by limiting the loss of stratospheric ozone, the Montreal Protocol helps to safeguard food security by reducing ultraviolet damage to crops and marine ecosystems. Cumulative estimates from 1987 to 2060 show that the global phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) alone will result in an estimated $1.8 trillion in global health benefits and almost $460 billion in avoided damages to agriculture, fisheries and materials.
Mitigating climate change and increasing the climate resilience of key health functions would bring large health gains, and as such has been described as “the greatest health opportunity of the twenty-first century”. For example, implementing proven, cost-effective measures to redu