Thousands of social networkers paid tribute to World Environment Day (WED) yesterday, blogging, tweeting and otherwise generating digital buzz around the event.
Celebrated on 5 June every year, with 2012 marking the event's 40th anniversary, WED aims to raise awareness around the need for sustainable living and positive environmental action.
Organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), WED's theme this year was “Green economy: does it include you?” with a focus on moving towards a system based on low carbon emissions and resource efficiency.
More than 9 000 activities were registered for WED worldwide, from tree-planting in Kenya, to environmental film screenings in Brussels, as countries continue to gear up for the Rio+20 summit, taking place in Brazil later this month.
Social networks and environmental sites were also teeming with activity yesterday, with WED trending on Twitter in several countries, including SA, India and Spain.
One of UNEP's partners for the event was mobile photo-sharing platform Piictu, an app that allows users to take and post pictures from their smartphones, and receive live responses. Along with fellow UNEP partner TreeHugger, Piictu promoted WED by creating dedicated picture streams, including The environment speaks!, How to save on energy, and Handwrite a pledge for the planet.
“It is an exciting opportunity to connect our global network to environmental issues through photos,” said a Piictu statement. “Because an image can speak across nations and language barriers, we know the Piictu community presents a great opportunity to honour nature and the budding green economy around the world.”
Job generator
The theme of this year's event also reflected the realities of a society under huge economic strain, and offered a vision of both a cleaner environment and boosted global employment.
UN goodwill ambassador Don Cheadle said: “We need a clean, more progressive economy - a green economy - a new way forward. We need an economy that is good for people, business and the planet. We need 21st-century jobs based on sustainable principles... It offers possibilities for everyone.”
SA's own environmental affairs minister, Edna Molewa, said in her WED speech yesterday that government has identified the green economy as one of the key elements in the New Growth Path and Industrial Policy Action Plan. “We must ensure our efforts aimed at creating job opportunities as we transition towards a green economy include young people. This month, as we celebrate Youth Month as well, we will roll up our sleeves by launching the first phase of the country-wide green hubs with various satellite and regional operations.”
The department has also received an additional R1.1 billion over the medium-term expenditure period for its environment programmes, taking the budget for these programmes over that period to R7.7 billion. Overall, the Environmental Protection and Infrastructure Programmes in the 20011/12 financial year created about 26 896 new job opportunities, said Molewa. The goal for this year is to create employment opportunities for about 62 860 people, she added.
In addition, National Treasury's Green Fund allocated R800 million over the next two financial years to the department's green economy implementation plan. “We are extending partnerships to key international funding institutions such as the World Bank Clean Technology Fund and the newly established Green Climate Fund,” said Molewa.
The potential of green jobs is being universally recognised, with a new UN report showing that shifting to a greener economy could generate up to 60 million additional jobs over the next two decades. The report finds that the transformation of key sectors such as agriculture, energy, construction and transport has already created tens of millions of jobs and will eventually affect at least half of the global workforce, equivalent to around 1.5 billion people.