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Environment Current Affairs
Environment Current Affairs May 2nd Week 2019
Category : Environment Current Affairs
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 1. UN report notifies that 40% of amphibian species and 1 million of insect and fauna are threatened

 
The UN Report termed as ‘Global Assessment’, stated that, among the approximated 8 million plant, insect and animal species, around 1 million is at risk of extinction within decades.
The research study confirms that this extreme loss is a direct result of human activity and has the consequence of a direct threat to human well-being worldwide
The report was endorsed by 130 countries, including the U.S., Russia and China
The research study was launched in Paris by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). 
IPBES is headed by Robert Watson, a British environmental scientist
The research study has been compiled by 145 expert authors from 50 countries
The basic foundation of the study lies in the dire need to incorporate a new “post-growth” form of economics, which would help to alter the risks of pollution, habitat destruction and carbon emissions
The researchers notified that industrial farming and fishing are the major causes of species extinction
The Species extinction rate has accelerated by tens to hundreds of times over the last 10 million years
The report also stated that the average abundance of native species in most major habitats has decreased by at least 20%, mostly since 1900
It also notifies that humans have severely changed 75% of land surface, 40% of oceanic environment and 50% of inland waterways, causing irreparable damage through urbanisation, deforestation and agricultural malpractices.
 
2. Ireland becomes second country to declare climate emergency
 
Ireland has declared climate emergency in their country, to be the second country after Britain to do so. 
An amendment to a parliamentary report declaring a climate emergency and calling on parliament to examine how the Irish government can improve its response to the issue of biodiversity loss was accepted without a vote.
Irish Green Party leader Eamon Ryan, who moved the amendment, called the decision historic. 
Britain`s parliament became the first in the world to declare a climate emergency, passing the largely symbolic motion on May 1. 
The step followed 11 days of street protests in London by the Extinction Rebellion environmental campaign group.
 
3. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
 
According to global assessment report of the (IPBES) –
Human beings have aggressively exploited nature.
Species belonging to a quarter of all studied animal and plant groups on earth are gravely threatened (due to human impact).
Ecosystem losses have accelerated over the past five decades universally
Any devastation to tropical areas, which are endowed with greater biodiversity than other regions, is worrisome.
If the world continues to pursue the current model of economic growth without factoring in environmental costs, one million species could go extinct, many in a matter of decades.
The global rate of species extinction is at least tens to hundreds of times higher than the average rate over the past 10 million years, and it is accelerating alarmingly.
Marine plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980, affecting at least 267 species, including 86% of marine turtles, 44% of seabirds and 43% of marine mammals.
Ecological economists have always warned about ever-increasing consumption which courts modifying terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems to suit immediate needs, such as raising agricultural and food output and extracting materials.
Such modifications severely affect other functions such as water availability, pollination, maintenance of wild variants of domesticated plants and climate regulation.