Title: 21 issues for the 21st century : results of the UNEP foresight process on emerging environmental issues.
Authors: United Nations Environment Programme
Publisher: United Nations Environment Programme,
Year: 2012
Subjects: Human ecology Congresses; Environmental policy Congresses; Global environmental change Congresses
Abstract: The UNEP foresight report contains a description of the 21 emerging environmental issues identified through the UNEP Foresight Process. The process involved the identification of emerging issues by UNEP colleagues and a Foresight Panel comprised of 22 distinguished members of the scientific community cutting across a wide spectrum of environmental related disciplines and world regions; the debating and prioritization of the identified issues by the foresight panel; the scoring of prioritized issues via an electronic consultation (survey) involving more than 400 scientists worldwide; and a further debating and ranking of the final list of issues by the foresight panel, putting into consideration the outcome of the electronic consultation. The process resulted in a list of 21 emerging environmental issues tagged "21 Issues for the 21st Century" covering the major themes of the global environment including food, land, freshwater, marine, biodiversity, climate change, energy, waste, and technology; as well important cross-cutting issues ranging from the need for better environmental governance, to the need for human behavioral change towards the environment.
Contents: Introduction -- Emerging themes : 21 issues for the 21st century. Aligning governance to the challenges of global sustainability -- Transforming human capabilities for the 21st century : meeting global environmental challenges and moving towards a green economy -- Broken bridges : reconnecting science and policy -- Social tipping points? : catalyzing rapid and transformative changes in human behaviour towards the environment -- New concepts for coping with creeping changes and imminent thresholds -- Coping with migration caused by new aspects of environmental change -- New challenges for ensuring food safety and food security for 9 billion people -- Beyond conservation : integrating biodiversity across the environmental and economic agendas -- Boosting urban sustainability and resilience -- The new rush for land : responding to new national and international pressures -- New insights on water-land interactions : shift in the management paradigm? -- Shortcutting the degradation of inland waters in developing countries -- Potential collapse of oceanic systems requires integrated ocean governance -- Coastal ecosystems : addressing increasing pressures with adaptive governance -- New challenges for climate change mitigation and adaptation : managing the unintended consequences -- Acting on the signal of climate change in the changing frequency of extreme events -- Managing the impacts of glacier retreat -- accelerating the implementation of environmentally-friendly renewable energy systems -- Greater risk than necessary? : the need for a new approach for minimizing risks of novel technologies and chemicals -- Changing the face of waste : solving the impending scarcity of strategic minerals and avoiding electronic waste -- The environmental consequences of decommissioning nuclear reactors.