Home > Interviews > Ashbindu Singh Previous Interviews | Latest Interview December 2005 Ashbindu Singh Regional Coordinator UNEP Division of Early Warning & Assessment - North America Washington, usa Email: as@rona.unep.org   “Satellite data stimulates major environmental policies” What are the key environmental issues of the world as identified by UNEP? What are the main programmes/ strategies to tackle these issues? UNEP has identified climate change, land degradation, forest loss and degradation, biodiversity loss and habitat fragmentation, freshwater access and pollution, marine and coastal zones degradation, atmospheric pollution, urban and industrial contamination, and waste as key environmental issues. However, we found both - striking similarities and dissimilarities among regional environmental priorities. Environmental risks to human health are high on the priority list in North America and transboundary regional environmental problems and climate change are major concerns in Europe. Of more immediate concern in the developing world is poverty alleviation and food security. There are a large number of programmes, policies and Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA) to address environmental issues. An analysis of policy responses indicates that typically these responses focus first on institutional and constitutional issues, and then on the implementation and enforcement of often disjointed sectoral environmental legislation and regulations. Subsequent actions dedicated to developing comprehensive strategic and integrated plans for the protection of the environment, such as National Environmental Action Plans, and an array of concerted command-and-control measures. Later, attention has been given to introducing market-based incentives to research, creating conducive environments for voluntary, flexible, and innovative actions, and stimulating increased participation and commitment by all sectors of society. Policy response is often constrained in developing regions by weak institutions, insufficient human and financial resources, ineffective legislation, and a lack of compliance monitoring and enforcement capabilities. What was the primary objective behind the creation of UNEP's Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA)? What are the division's primary activities? The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the leading programme responsible for environmental governance in the UN system and, therefore, plays a crucial role in carrying out the mandate and achieving the original purposes of the UN. The UN's General Assembly Resolution 2997 (1972) set out the mandates of UNEP and its Governing Council. They include: To promote international co-operation in the field of the environment and to recommend, as appropriate, policies to this end; To keep under review the world environment situation in order to ensure that emerging environmental problems of wide international significance receive adequate consideration by governments; and To promote the contribution of the relevant international scientific and other professional communities to the acquisition, assessment and exchange of environmental knowledge and information. The Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA) is the division responsible to "keep under review the world environment situation." It conducts scientific assessment, provides early warning information, the access and delivery of environmental data and information to the international community and capacity building. In implementing the mission, DEWA focuses on three strategic directions: Strengthening the scientific base for decision-making by undertaking timely, policy relevant and scientifically credible environmental assessments. Enabling governments to develop improved environmental data and information systems for early warning and decision making by supporting monitoring and data collection systems and developing indicators for assessments and reporting. Supporting environmental governance for sustainable development by strengthening cooperation with and building capacity of national, sub-regional, regional and international institutions for assessment, monitoring, data management and reporting. Among its many activities, DEWA is responsible for producing UNEP's flagship publication Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report, the GEO Yearbook, regional and subregional state of environment reports, and providing support to international reports such as Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Global International Water Assessment and others. It works closely with other UNEP Divisions, UN agencies, the Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and the scientific community. The pair of images shows the retreat of Alaska's Colombia Glacier between about 1980 (left) and in 2005 (right). (Source: www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov) How far have GIS and related technologies like Remote Sensing, GPS, provided enhancement to environment monitoring programmes? Could some examples of ongoing projects using such technologies be cited, especially in Asia? The remarkable developments in space technology and GIS and its application during the last three decades have provided important tools for establishing baselines and benchmarks, change analysis, programming and monitoring for results and impacts, and policy making agencies to address issues related to sustainable development more effectively. The results obtained through the use of satellite data have stimulated major environmental policy decisions at various levels around the world. Recognizing the crucial role of space technology, the Plan of Implementation adopted at the recent World Summit on Sustainable Development, held between August 26 and September 4, 2002, in Johannesburg, Member States agreed to "promote the development and wider use of earth observation technologies, including satellite remote sensing, global mapping and geographic information systems, to collect quality data on environmental impacts, land use and land use changes." UNEP has set up the Global Resource Information Database (GRID), a system of cooperating Centres, in 1985 that is dedicated to making environmental information more readily accessible to environmental analysts as well as international and national decision makers. Its mission is to provide timely and reliable geo-referenced environmental information and access to a unique international data service to help address environmental issues at global, regional and national levels in order to bridge the gap between scientific understanding of earth processes and sound management of the environment. UNEP produced a large number of important analysis and reports using remote sensing and GIS tools. In fact, on the World Environment Day , June 3, 2005 in San Francisco, USA, UNEP released mew publication "One Planet, Many People : Atlas of Our Changing Environment" which became UNEP's best seller ever. The Atlas provides evidence of environmental changes around the world, using remote sensing and GIS tools. Interdisciplinary impacts of energy, population, food, water resources, urban/transportation problems, natural and human induced disasters, diseases and pollution related to environmental change are also presented, thereby increasing the awareness and need for global environmental policy making, environmental law, environmental economics, environmental ethics and philosophy, and environmental management. As a part of its capacity building process, UNEP is distributing orthorectified Landsat data (about 17,000 satellite images) from 1990 and 2000 to 168 developing countries, including in Asia, for monitoring changes in environment. UNEP has a long standing partnership with ESRI, Inc. of Redlands California to provide Arc/Info family of software to its collaborating partners. However, despite enormous gains in the acquisition of environmental data and information, there are still major gaps in our knowledge of environmental processes, in the state of the environment at local, regional and global levels, and in our ability to predict and adapt to new environmental threats. There are also significant deficiencies in our data, as well as in our ability to combine modern tools and techniques with the data that are available, particularly for developing countries. Artistic impression of Global Warming Since its inception in 1972, what has been UNEP's key initiatives to address the issue of climate change? What is being done at UNEP’s end to address the issue of global warming? UNEP has been a major player in bringing climate change issue on the global agenda. UNEP in partnership with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) provides a secretariat for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). UNEP continues to be a key player in ensuring the Kyoto Protocol's success, through assessment and capacity building activities, its energy programme, and its partnership with the private sector. UNEP is engaged in a number of activities relating to adaptation to climate change, promotion of clean and renewable energy and sustainable energy solutions. Despite wide understanding of environmental issues, the world still faces environmental hazards. Where are the existing policy frameworks lacking? What steps may be adopted at national levels for achieving better results in this sphere? We are now confronted with both old and new threats to international peace and security; poverty has been recognized by world leaders as the most daunting of all the problems facing the world in the new century; and fundamental values of freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature and shared responsibility now form common values through which achievements in the former two categories can be realized. In each of these key areas environment and resources play a central role. Threats to common security now include so-called "soft threats": environmental degradation, resource depletion, contagious diseases and corruption, to name a few. It is now recognised that both scarcity and abundance of natural resources and environmental degradation are potential sources of conflict - and cooperation - and need to be more systematically addressed in this context. Environmental sustainability is a key goal that needs to be achieved to ensure sustainable human development and the elimination of poverty. Access to fresh water and sanitation services are seen as a precondition to the achievement of the other internationally accepted goals in the Millennium Declaration. Lastly, the way we perceive nature and the value of the goods and services it provides to human society are of fundamental importance in establishing the common values on which peace, security and development are based. There has been immense change in both human and environmental conditions over the past decades. In an unprecedented period of population increase, the environment has been heavily drawn upon to meet a multiplicity of human needs. In many areas, the state of the environment is much more fragile and degraded than it was a couple of decades ago. As discussed in the UNEP's Global Environment Outlook (GEO) 3 report, the world can now be categorized by four major divides: The Environmental Divide - characterized by a stable or improved environment in some regions, for example Europe and North America, and a degraded environment in the other regions, mostly the developing countries. The Policy Divide - characterized by two distinct dimensions involving policy development and implementation with some regions having strength in both and others still struggling in both areas. The Vulnerability Gap - which is widening within society, between countries and across regions with the disadvantaged more at risk to environmental change and disasters. The Lifestyle Divide - partly a result of growing poverty and of affluence. One side of the lifestyle divide is characterized by excesses of consumption by the minority one-fifth of the world population, which is responsible for close to 90 per cent of total personal consumption; the other side by extreme poverty where 1.2 billion people live on less than US$1 per day. The four gaps collectively are a serious threat to sustainable development.