2022: a busy environmental agenda.

As the new year begins, the world continues to face a number of familiar challenges - the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, the resurgence of wildfires, persistent crises of climate change, loss of biodiversity, pollution. and waste. Yet 2022 could prove to be a pivotal year for the environment, events and high level conferences planned , which should reinvigorate international cooperation and collective action.

The coming year will also mark two Golden Jubilees. In 1972, the world has taken the environmental mantle at the historic Conference of the United Nations on the Human Environment in Stockholm. The meeting put the environment firmly on the priority list of governments, civil society, businesses and policy makers, recognizing the inextricable links between the planet, human well-being and economic growth. Today, fifty years later, the meeting Stockholm + 50 in June 2022 to commemorate the event, will reflect on a half century of global environmental action and look to the future.

The Stockholm Conference also gave birth to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the United Nations body charged with monitoring the state of the environment, informing policy-making through science. and galvanize action. For fifty years, UNEP has used its convening power and rigorous scientific research to coordinate a global effort to address environmental challenges. A series of activities will mark the 50th anniversary of UNEP this year.

UNEP began the year 2022 with a new 'Medium-Term Strategy "including inter action routines :

• Climate action,
• Action for chemicals and pollution,
• Action for nature,
• Science policy,
• Environmental governance,
• Finance and Economic Transformations and Digital Transformations.

The strategy was adopted at the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly in 2021; the resumed session, known to ANUE 5.2 , will be held in February 2022. Under the theme " Strengthening actions for nature to achieve sustainable development goals " , discussions will highlight the central role of nature in sustainable social, economic and environmental development.

June will be a busy month on the environmental calendar. 5, the world will meet to celebrate World Environment Day. Led by UNEP and held annually since 1974, this day has become the world's largest platform for environmental awareness, with millions of people engaged in the protection of the planet. This year's event will be hosted by Sweden, under the campaign slogan " Only One Earth ", focusing on sustainable living in harmony with nature. Have

Although the timing of environmental achievement is proof of what can be achieved through multilateral action, science remains irrefutable. Unsustainable consumption and production patterns fuel the triple global crisis of climate change, loss of nature and biodiversity, pollution and waste. The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, warned that the triple crisis is the existential threat a number of mankind.

Several global events in 2022 aim to encourage dialogue and influence policy decisions to address the triple crisis. These include a global framework for biodiversity post-2020 , which will be adopted in May at COP 15 and could avoid the extinction of more than one million species , and the United Nations Conference on oceans in July, which aims to protect one of our most vital ecosystems.

Last year, the UN Secretary-General reminded the world that “we are at a crossroads, with significant choices ahead of us. It can go both ways: breakdown or breakthrough. "

Experts hope 2022 will be a year of environmental breakthroughs.