UN General Assembly
1984

22. An increase in population will also impose greater strains on the environment. Even now, we see the deserts spreading, valuable soil becoming salinated and eroded, and vegetation in industrial countries being threatened by acid rain. Year by year, numerous types of animals and plants disappear irretrievably. Seas and inland waters are becoming polluted. Hydrocarbon combustion is jeopardizing the world climate. Industrial waste, refuse and sewage pose enormous technical and financial challenges to the world community. UNEP must become the driving force of a worldwide environmental policy. But all international cooperation is in vain if environmental protection is not practised at home, in our own countries. Polluted air and poisoned water do not stop at national boundaries. For this reason, we are talking and negotiating with all our neighbours in the West and the East on joint action to combat the dangers of pollution. The Conference on the Environment, held at Munich, provided an important stimulus for a joint approach on trans-boundary pollution. In the interest of combating environmental pollution at its source, more account must be taken than has been done hitherto, in public and private economic cooperation with the third world, of the need to protect the natural sources of life.