Frontiers 2017: Emerging Issues of Environmental Concern

Authors: UN Environment
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For more than 10 years, UNEP has sought to identify and draw attention to emerging issues of environmental concern. The UNEP Frontiers’ report  continues to advances this work, signaling environmental issues and solutions for effective and timely responses. Some issues may be local, relatively small-scale issues today, with a potential to become an issue of regional or global concern if not addressed early.

What emerging issues are presented in the Frontiers’ 2017 report?

  1. In this edition, the Antimicrobial Resistance chapter discusses the growing, dangerous trend of antimicrobial resistance and the potential catastrophic consequences on global health.
     
  2. The Nanomaterials chapter talks about this relatively new technology and its potential impacts on the environment and health.
     
  3. The Marine Protected Areas chapter draws attention to the plight of our oceans and the need for more and better managed protected areas.
     
  4. The Sand and Dust Storms chapter discusses the human and environmental causes of such phenomena, their health impacts which include respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer, and the need to manage the storms through sustainable land and water management.
     
  5. The Solar Solutions chapter highlights how this renewable energy could help tackle climate change and bring much needed energy to off grid settlements.
     
  6. The Environmental Displacement chapter shows how the impacts of climate change are displacing people, causing them to leave their homes.

 

A per chapter breakdown of this report is available on the right column of this page. To view this report in other UN languages, please click on "Languages" on top right of header

Antimicrobial Resistance: Investigating

Growing antibiotic resistance is emerging as one of the biggest global public health concerns of the twenty-first century. While studies have linked the intensive and often unnecessary administration of antibiotics over recent decades to increasing resistance, the role of the environment in the emergence and spread of resistance has received little attention.

Sand and Dust Storms: Subduing a Global Phenomenon

Each year, an estimated two billion tonnes of dust is raised into the atmosphere. According to the report, Impacts of Sand and Dust Storms on Oceans: A Scientific Environmental Assessment for Policy Makers, even the smallest elements can have substantive effects on ecosystem functioning – and on the Earth system, at large. 

Plastic in our seas

Marine plastic pollution is ubiquitous and dangerous to the health of our marine environments. It has been found that plastic pollution in marine ecosystems reduce ecosystem services by up to USD 2,500 billion per year!