The FINANCIAL-- On June 4, 2008 Batumi hosted a series of environmental events and activities to celebrate World Environment Day.

This year’s campaign – Change Your Lifestyle, not Climate!, stimulates awareness of climate change and promotes resources and initiatives that help make economy greener and cleaner. 

Throughout the day, Batumi Boulevard faced a bicycle parade, kids’ drawing competition and a symbolic decoration of the Earth Cake. This was followed by a public discussion and a film show in the Batumi Green Café.
The campaign was organized by the United Nations (UN) Office in Georgia in cooperation with the non-governmental organization Green Way and under the patronage of the Georgian Ministry for Environment Protection and Natural Resources. Among the campaign’s partners and supporters is Wissol Petroleum Georgia.

Established by the UN General Assembly in 1972, World Environment Day is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations enhances political attention to environmental concerns. Recognizing that climate change is becoming a pressing issue of our era, the UN asks countries, companies and communities to promote low carbon economies and life-styles, such as improved energy efficiency, alternative energy sources, forest conservation and eco-friendly consumption.

Last November, the UN Development Programme launched Human Development Report Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world, which provides a stark account of the threat posed by global warming.

The purpose of World Environment Day is to focus worldwide attention on the importance of the environment and stimulate political attention and action. The event seeks to give a human face to environmental issues; empower people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development; promote an understanding that communities are pivotal to changing attitudes towards environmental issues; and advocate partnership, which will ensure that all nations and peoples enjoy a safer
and more prosperous future.

Each year, a different city is chosen as the principal venue for the global celebration of World Environment Day. The host government and/or city, in cooperation with UNEP, set the tone for the event. A theme, slogan and logo are selected to be the focus for all World Environment Day information materials and promotional activities worldwide.

As November 2007 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report under the headline: Climate Change Threatens Unprecedented Human development Reversals, says, with governments preparing to gather in Bali, Indonesia to discuss the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report has warned that the world should focus on the development impact of climate change that could bring unprecedented reversals in poverty reduction, nutrition, health and education.
On mitigation, the authors call on developed countries to demonstrate leadership by cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. The report advocates a mix of carbon taxation, more stringent cap-and-trade programmes, energy regulation, and international cooperation on financing for low-carbon technology transfer.

The report provides evidence of the mechanisms through with the ecological impacts of climate change will be transmitted to the poor. Focusing on the 2.6 billion people surviving on less than US$2 a day, the authors warn forces unleashed by global warming could stall and then reverse progress built up over generations.

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