On the eve of the Rio+20 Summit, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published the fifth edition of Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-5) on June 6. The report was pessimistic about the situation of global environmental management as the world continues along an unsustainable development path despite wide-ranging international agreement on hundreds of goals an objectives.

Of the total 500 internationally agreed goals and objectives to support the sustainable management of the environment and improve human wellbeing, the report assessed the 90 most important and found only four had made significant progress.

Successes cited by the report include: eliminating the production and use of substances that deplete the ozone layer, removal of lead from fuel, increasing access to improved water supplies and boosting research to reduce pollution of the marine environment.

Some progress was shown in 40 goals, including the expansion of protected areas such as national parks and efforts to reduce deforestation.

Little or no progress was detected for 24, including climate change, fish stocks, and desertification and drought. Further deterioration was posted for eight goals including the state of the world's coral reefs while no assessment was made of 14 other goals due to a lack of data.

A silver lining

The report cautions that if humanity does not urgently change its ways, several critical thresholds may be exceeded, beyond which abrupt and generally irreversible changes to the life-support functions of the planet could occur.

UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said, if current trends continue, if current patterns of production and consumption of natural resources prevail and cannot be reversed and 'decoupled', then governments will preside over unprecedented levels of damage and degradation.

But it's not all bad news. The report says meeting an ambitious set of sustainability targets by the middle of the century is possible if current policies and strategies are changed and strengthened, and gives many examples of successful policy initiatives, including public investment, green accounting, and sustainable trade, the establishment of new markets, technological innovation and capacity building.

The GEO-5 also points out that where international treaties and agreements have tackled goals with specific, measurable targets—such as the bans on ozone-depleting substances and lead in petrol—they have demonstrated considerable success. For this reason, GEO-5 calls for more specific targets, with quantifiable results, across a broader range of environmental challenges.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the report also calls for a greater focus on policies that target the drivers of environmental degradation such as population increase, urbanization, consumption and resource use. Although reducing the drivers of environmental change directly may appear politically difficult, it is possible to accomplish significant indirect benefits by targeting more expedient objectives, such as international goals on human well-being, the report says.