Messages

Sixty years ago in San Francisco the founding members of the United Nations pledged their determination to save future generations from the scourge of war and promote human dignity and social progress. If, as a global community, we are to fulfil these pledges, we will have to address the issue of the world’s rapid urbanization. Too many of today’s cities are breeding grounds for pollution, poverty, disease and despair, but they need not be. With careful planning, our cities can be flagships of sustainable development. This is our message for World Environment Day 2005. Green Cities: Plan for the Planet! is both a warning and a declaration of faith in our ability to turn the expansion of urban centres to the benefit of all.

Wherever we look, cities are crying out for answers. In the developing world, where urban population growth is most pronounced, more than a billion people are condemned to lives of poverty and ill-health because they are denied the clean water, basic sanitation and adequate shelter that people in the developed world often take for granted. Easing the burden of the world’s poorest people will reap a double dividend, giving them a foothold on the ladder to a better life and helping to protect the environment on which we all depend.

Providing improved sanitation to the slums of the world will protect freshwater resources—and the sea into which all rivers flow. It will also help to save the lives of many of the 6,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases associated with lack of safe water and poor hygiene. Replacing wood fires with more sustainable energy sources will not only preserve forests but reduce air pollution. Respiratory disease is another of the world’s great killers, and the developing world’s growing megacities have the worst air quality. Air pollution can also be tackled by cleaning up vehicle exhausts and preventing the release of toxic fumes from burning plastic and other refuse by promoting appropriate waste collection and disposal.

UNEP is working in all these areas. Our energy and sustainable transport programmes are addressing the environmental consequences of energy production and use, from local air pollution to global warming. We are working to promote environmentally sound technological solutions to freshwater use and waste disposal, and our Sustainable Cities programme—in partnership with UN-Habitat, our sister agency—is helping cities to plan and manage their environment and share the lessons with local and national governments worldwide.

The challenges presented by growing urbanization are daunting, but they are not insurmountable. For example, towns and cities—predominantly those in the developed world—are currently responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change, mostly from cars, trucks and power stations. These emissions can be drastically cut by a combination of clean energy technologies coupled with enlightened city planning.

Imagine a city where buildings use solar power to help generate their own energy, and waste less because they use power-saving lighting and are well-insulated, where public transport is affordable and efficient, where vehicles pollute less because they are powered by electricity or hydrogen. That city has become part of the solution, not the problem. It is the city of the future. With the support of communities, businesses and, above all, governments, it can also be the city of today.

The world is not short of inspiring answers to the questions raised by the urban millennium. Across the globe, and not just in the developed world, there are examples of communities, businesses and governments working to redesign the metropolis. Traffic-clogged city centres are being reclaimed for pedestrians, green spaces preserved and expanded, recycling schemes promoted, environmentally friendly buildings designed. These examples are like seeds. The challenge is to nurture these seeds, propagate them, and spread them to the furthest reaches of the globe.

Towns and cities are humanity’s home—and its future. Making that a future of peace, dignity and prosperity is the responsibility of all. It is appropriate, then, that World Environment Day 2005 is being celebrated in the birthplace of the organization founded to represent the interests of everyone, from the most powerful to the most humble. We, the peoples of the United Nations, need to look forward with hope. That hope lies in Green Cities.