At IETC we pay specific attention to urban environmental
problems such as water supply, sewage, solid waste, energy, loss of green and
natural spaces, urban sprawl, land contamination, traffic, transport, air
pollution and noise. The present state of these problems will be introduced and
discussed by topic. The urban environmental problems are serious in developing
countries and countries with economies in transition due to the collision
between the economic plan of short run and the environment protection. The
Centre serves as a proactive inter-mediator for cooperation between sources and
users of Environmental Sound Technologies. We also play a role in strengthening
the capacities of peoples living in our target areas to make sensible decisions
about technologies for sustainable development.
The world's population is increasingly found in the cities.
Today, throughout the developing world, urbanization trends are gaining speed
and are irreversible. From a technical standpoint, it is easier to provide water
and sanitation services to people living closer together in urban settings than
in dispersed rural communities. However, the costs of meeting the needs are much
higher per capita, and are growing. The health risks posed by the lack of
sanitation increase exponentially as densities increase and as people share
drinking water and sanitation resources.
The urban environmental sanitation crisis in developing countries is taking a
large health, economic, and environmental toll on all city residents.
Willingness to pay for basic water and sanitation services is often high in
peri-urban neighborhoods, provided that services are appropriate, effective, and
affordable. The use of a strategic sanitation approach should helps to build
capacity within implementing agencies and enhances the ability of communities to
make sustainable sanitation improvements.
The global changes mask quite distinct regional differences in
land use changes. As mentioned above, urbanization is developing very speed and
is irreversible. In industrial regions, agricultural land is projected to
increase from its 1990 level by about 3 per cent by 2015 and 10 per cent by
2050. In North America, the percentage increase is 4 per cent by 2015 but only 2
per cent by 2050, while in Europe and the former USSR the figures are 4 per cent
by 2015 and 18 per cent by 2050.
In summary, to meet future food demands, a considerable extension of the area
currently used for agriculture is needed, in addition to improvements in yields,
unless more drastic changes take place in societies. It is projected that this
extension will principally affect developing regions and some parts of North
America, Europe, and the former USSR. In all areas, any extension of
agricultural area is projected to occur at the expense of remaining natural
||Pressures on Natural
According to the Global Biodiversity Assessment, species have
been becoming extinct since 1600 at 50-100 times the average estimated natural
rate, while the extinction rate is expected to rise to between 1,000 and 10,000
times the natural rate. The Global Biodiversity Assessment identifies the five
major causes of biodiversity loss as the fragmentation, degradation, or outright
loss of habitats (through the conversion of land for agriculture,
infrastructure, or urbanization, for example); overexploitation; the
introduction of non-native species; pollution; and climate change, Some positive
initiatives have also been identified, however, such as the establishment of
protected areas, habitat regeneration, and measures that mitigate pressures from
The closure of existing open dumpsites and the introduction of
sanitary landfill is an urgent priority everywhere in the developing world. Even
where complementary disposal technologies such as composting or incineration
(waste to energy plants) are practiced, a landfill is still required and is the
backbone of any sustainable disposal system. Given the essential nature of the
landfill for final disposal, and the lack of local experience and financial
resources for introducing sanitary landfills, central government support in
terms of technical assistance and access to financing is needed in many lower
and middle income countries. Matching grants designed to encourage landfill
investments and sustainable operations may be an appropriate instrument to
consider, primarily because the environmental damages and benefits tend to
spillover into neighboring municipalities and regions, or into underlying
||Climate Change and Air
Climate change and acidification are recognized as current or
potential problems in both industrial and developing countries. Recently, a
better understanding of how these two problems overlap and interact has emerged.
First, greater combustion of fossil fuels increases the emissions of many
acidifying pollutants as well as greenhouse gases. Second, changes in weather
patterns stimulated by climate change will alter the intensity and distribution
of acid deposition. Third and perhaps most important, because it complicates
projections of climate change emissions of acidifying pollutants, especially
sulphur dioxide, lead to the accumulation in the upper atmosphere of aerosols
that partly mask the effects of greenhouse gases. The two important global
issues addressed here climate change and acidification have the same underlying
cause: a high level of economic activity that results in the emission of huge
amounts of polluting substances into the atmosphere. Energy consumption in
industrial regions has increased almost exponentially with the growth of
population and economies.
||Energy, Environment and
Energy is basic to development. They improve people's
productivity. In the aggregate, modern energy services are powerful engine of
economic and social opportunity: no country has managed to develop much beyond a
subsistence economy without ensuring at least minimum access to energy services
for a broad section of its population. It is not surprising to find, therefore,
that the billion who live in developing countries attach a high priority to
energy services. On average, these people spend nearly 12% of their income on
energy. More than five times the average for people living in OECD countries. As
a "revealed preference", to use the economistsEjargon, energy services are high
on the agenda of the world's poorest people.
At the same time, the provision of energy services especially through the
combustion of fossil fuels and biomass can create adverse environmental effects.
In rich countries, much attention is directed to the regional and global
consequences of fuel combustion, because many of the local effects have been
controlled at considerable expense over the past half-century. In developing
countries, the local environmental problems associated with energy use remain
matters of concern that are as, or even more, urgent than they were in
industrialized countries 50 or 100 years ago. Further, it is the poor who suffer
most severely from such problems, because it is they who are forced to rely upon
the most inefficient and polluting sources of energy services for lack of access
to better alternatives.
In currently developing regions, a multitude of health
determinants have an influence at the same time. There are important negative
impacts of environmental factors, as well as more positive impacts, of which
economic situation and family income, education and insight, and behavioral
changes appear to be dominant influences. Major improvements in health have been
achieved over recent decades in terms of both decreases in overall morbidity and
mortality and more specific parameters such as the incidence of infectious
diseases or prenatal and infant mortality. Life expectancy has increased nearly
everywhere, and this has led to increases in population, despite declining birth
rates in many countries. In some countries, however, this fertility transition
is slow or stagnating.
At the moment, children under age five account for more than 25 per cent of
global mortalities. These occur almost exclusively in developing countries,
where 85 per cent of mortality (10.6 million deaths) in children under age 5 is
caused by communicable diseases nearly half of them diarrhea diseases.
Nevertheless, mortality in children under age 5 attributable to communicable
diseases in developing countries is declining; if this trend continues, it will
lead to significant decreases in global mortality.
||Related Institutions and
Global Environment Centre Foundation (GEC)
was established in 1992 to make use of the abundant accumulation of knowledge
and experience in the field of environmental preservation in Japan, to support
contributions of UNEP for urban environmental management in developing
countries, to promote international cooperation for environmental conservation,
and thereby to contribute to the conservation of the global environment.
As a part of the Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE) of UNEP,
IETC is currently closely coordinating its activities with substantive offices
of UNEP, mainly Division of Environmental Policy Development and Law and Division
of Environmental Policy Implementation, INFOTERRA and UNEP's regional offices.
We are also implementing joint activities with the Sustainable Cities Programme
of UN-HABITAT), and working
in close collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD),
the International Labour Organization (ILO),
the World Health Organization (WHO),
the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO),
the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD),
the Regional Economic Commissions and the United Nations organizations at large.
The World Bank (WorldBank)
and the regional banks of reconstruction and development, for example, The Asian
Development Bank (ADB), The
Inter-American Development Banks (IADB),
The African Development Bank (AFDB),
The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
and The Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC)
also are planning and implementing the urban environmental improvement projects.
|This paper was written mainly base on the materials on the
homepages of UNEP and IETC, The World Bank and The UNDP-World Bank Water and
Sanitation Program (WSP), especially following reports:
- Vandeweerd, V.; Cheatle, M.; Henricksen, B.; Schomaker, M.; Seki, M.;
Zahedi, K., Global Environment Outlook (GEO)―UNEP Global State of
Environment Report 1997
- Daniel, H.; Thomas, L., What a Waste: Solid Waste Management in Asia.
The World Bank, Urban & Local Government Working Paper Series No. 1, Washington,
DC, May 1999.
- Executive Summary of Fuel for Thought. World Bank Group's Board of
Executive Directors. Washington, DC, July 1999