Global leaders, environmentalists, civil societies, among others, are set to mark the 2020 World Environment Day (WED) by lending their voices to advocate for the protection of the environment by promoting environmental justice.
WED is globally marked every June 5, in about 150 countries to create awareness and take action to protect and offer solutions to challenges affecting the environment.
The 2020 WED is to be hosted by Colombia with the theme: “Biodiversity”, and the slogan: “Time for Nature”, to focus on nature, biodiversity conservation and sustainability, following the fact that one million plant and animal species are facing extinction.
However, due to the lockdown going on across the globe and most people working from home to stop the spread of COVID-19, participants will mark the event in a global online forum.
The Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Inger Andersen, while announcing the 2020 theme at Cop 25 in Madrid in December, 2019, said 2020 was a year for urgency, ambition and action to address the crisis facing nature; and also “an opportunity to fully incorporate nature-based solutions into global climate action.”
Anderson said, “Each year, WED is a powerful platform to accelerate, amplify and engage people, communities and governments around the world to take action on critical environmental challenges facing the planet.”
Meanwhile, UNEP pointed that the “foods we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink and the climate that makes our planet habitable all come from nature. Yet, these are exceptional times in which nature is sending us a message: to care for ourselves, we must care for nature.”
UNEP added that, “It’s time to wake up, to take notice, to raise our voices. It’s time to build back better for people and planet.”
