The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is stepping up its work on mapping zoonotic threat and protecting the environment to reduce the risk of future pandemics, such as the COVID-19 crisis currently sweeping the globe.
In Working With the Environment to Protect People, released today, UNEP lays out how it is adjusting its work in response to COVID-19 through supporting nations and partners to “build back better” – through stronger science, policies that back a healthier planet and more green investments.
UNEP’s response covers four areas: helping nations manage COVID-19 waste, delivering a transformational change for nature and people, working to ensure economic recovery packages create resilience to future crises, and modernizing global environmental governance.
“In COVID-19, the planet has delivered its strongest warning to date that humanity must change,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen. “Shutting down economies is a short-term response to this warning. It cannot endure. Economies that work with nature are critical to ensure that the world’s nations thrive.”
Read more at UNEP
