Brazil Named Global Host of World Environment Day 2012

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced that Brazil, with one of the fastest growing economies in the world, will host World Environment Day 2012 (WED) on 5 June.

This year's theme ‘Green Economy: Does it include you? invites everyone to both assess where the Green Economy fits in their daily lives and evaluate whether development through these pathways towards a Green Economy can deliver the kinds of social, economic and environmental outcomes needed in a world of seven billion people, climbing to over nine billion in 2050.

Brazil had previously hosted WED in 1992, on the eve of the first Earth Summit, when world leaders, government officials and international organizations met to refocus, recalibrate and deliver a route map towards sustainable development.

“Three weeks after WED, Brazil will host Rio+20 where world leaders and nations will gather in order to design a future that takes sustainable development from theory and patchy success to the locomotive of transformational change—a pathway that can grow economies and generate decent jobs without pushing the globe past planetary boundaries,” said Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director.

With a country of 200 million people, Brazil is the fifth most populous nation in the world and has the fifth largest land mass on the planet with 8.5 million square kilometers

Further information:

The WED celebrations in Brazil on 5 June are part of thousands of events taking place around the globe. WED 2012 will emphasize how individual actions can have an exponential impact, with a variety of activities ranging from a marathon, to community clean-ups, car-free days, green blogging competitions, exhibits, green petitions, nationwide green campaigns and much more.

Visit the WED2012 website

Rio Earth Summit: In 1992 the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, popularly known as the Rio Earth Summit, was convened in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to address the state of the environment and sustainable development. In June 2012, there will be the follow up meeting, or Rio+20, in Brazil in June, where one of the main themes governments are expected to address is Green Economy “in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication”.

Visit the Rio+20 website

Source: UNEP News