UN Environment today released its 2018 Annual Report, highlighting the organization’s work on issues from fighting pollution of the air and sea to helping nations meet their goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“While 2018 was a challenging year, we saw hope in growing action and global commitment to new ways of doing business that tackle the environmental challenges we face,” said UN Environment Acting Executive Director Joyce Msuya. “Our role in highlighting best practices, advocating action and bringing together governments, civil society and businesses once again proved critical.”
The report, released online ahead of March 2019’s UN Environment Assembly, shows that the pace of action on many interlinked environmental issues is accelerating.
World Environment Day 2018 inspired action on plastic pollution, reaching hundreds of millions of people in over 190 countries as India pledged to phase out single-use plastics by 2022.
UN Environment partnered with the World Health Organization to host the first global meeting on air pollution, which kills millions of people each year, while supporting nations to improve air quality through electric mobility, fuel efficiency and much more.
Organizations and countries - convened by UN Environment - came together to save the Cuvette Central Peatlands in the Congo Basin, which is home to 14 globally threatened species and stores the carbon equivalent of three years of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The report shows UN Environment’s impact in many other areas, including making the cooling industry more climate-friendly, helping communities in Darfur to reduce resource conflicts in a changing climate and training authorities so they can better enforce environmental laws.
The online report will also integrate with the Programme Performance Report, a comprehensive review of the programme of work agreed with Member States.
“UN Environment has been, and will continue to be, a crucial actor in supporting nations to deliver on their environmental commitments,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
For more details, please read the 2018 Annual Report.
