World Environment Day

World Environment Day (WED) is celebrated every year on 5 June in more than 100 countries. WED was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972. WED is hosted every year by a different city and commemorated with an international exposition through the week of June 5. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), also created in 1972, uses WED to ‘urge governments and organizations in the United Nations system to undertake on that day every year world-wide activities reaffirming their concern for the preservation and enhancement of the environment’.

Through general publicity, most of us would know about WED, but I doubt whether we are all aware that a WED has a theme each year, it lasts for a week and that it is hosted by a different city each year. We also wouldn’t be aware that the only time Australia hosted WED was in 2000, when it was hosted by Adelaide. The theme was The Environment Millennium – Time to Act. The next closest host was New Zealand last year with the main international celebrations scheduled for Wellington. The slogan for 2008 was "CO2, Kick the Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy." Consequently, New Zealand was one of the first countries to pledge to achieve carbon neutrality, and will also focus on forest management as a tool for reducing greenhouse gases.

Mexico, a country at the crossroads of the Green Economy and one increasingly in the centre of regional and global affairs, will host the international 2009 WED celebrations. The theme chosen by the UNEP is ‘Your Planet Needs You - UNite to Combat Climate Change”. The last three themes have been around the topic of climate change, highlighting the global importance of the issue.

In Australia, we continue to have a political debate around the economic fallout of being a leader on such issues as climate change. We are far from being a leader. Mexico, as an example, is leading partner in UNEP’s Billion Tree Campaign. The country, with the support of its President and people, has spearheaded the pledging and planting of some 25 per cent of the trees under the campaign. Mexico has also become second only to Brazil in terms of wind, solar, biogas and other Clean Development Mechanism projects in the region.

To me, every day is a WED. The 1992 theme for WED as part of the Rio Summit was Only One Earth, Care and Share – a constant reminder that there is only one planet, and just like each of us having just one home, we need to learn to ‘care and share’ this planet we call home.

Terence Jeyaretnam is a Director of Net Balance (terence@netbalance.com), based in Melbourne.