DRIVING FIVE DECADES OF ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION
Since 1974, World Environment Day has developed into a global platform for raising environmental awareness and acting on urgent planetary issues.
Led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), over the past five decades millions of people have taken part in World Environment Days, helping drive change and motivate national and international environmental policy. Each World Environment Day focuses on a particular theme, covering issues like marine pollution, global warming, sustainable consumption and wildlife crime.
Below are some of the landmark World Environment Days through the years.
HISTORY
World Environment Day puts a global spotlight on the pressing environmental challenges of our times. This UN international day has become the largest global platform for environmental outreach, with millions of people from across the world engaging to protect the planet.
2021
The focus for World Environment Day 2021 was Ecosystem Restoration celebrated under the theme “Reimagine. Recreate. Restore”. For too long, humanity has been exploiting and destroying the planet's ecosystems. Every three seconds, the world loses enough forest to cover a football pitch and, over the last century, half of all wetlands have been destroyed. As much as 50 per cent of coral reefs have already been lost and up to 90 per cent could be lost by 2050, even if global warming is limited to an increase of 1.5°C. The Day in 2021 was hosted by Pakistan.
2020
In 2020, the World Environment Day theme focused on biodiversity – a concern both urgent and existential. The day was hosted by Colombia. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 crisis – caused by the rapid destruction of habitats – President Iván Duque Márquez said “the time to act is now if we want to assure our present and our future.” Fourteen world leaders – including those from Colombia, Costa Rica, Finland, France and Seychelles – released a statement calling on governments worldwide to support a new global goal to protect at least 30 per cent of the planet’s land and ocean by 2030.
2019
The 2019 theme was air pollution, a global emergency that causes around 7 million premature deaths every year. Hosted by China, President Xi Jinping stressed China’s willingness to share its experience with other countries in a letter to the 2019 World Environment Day event. The country also launched its Air Quality Improvement Report (2013-2018) to showcase successful policies and reflect on lessons learned.
2018
India hosted the 45th celebration of World Environment Day under the theme “Beat Plastic Pollution.” Over 6,000 people gathered at Versova Beach in Mumbai to join UN Environment Champion of the Earth, Afroz Shah, in a beach clean-up, where they collected over 90,000 kg of plastic. The Indian government made a bold commitment to ban all single-use plastics—which makes up 70 per cent of marine litter—by 2022 and European Union lawmakers agreed on a ban by 2025.
2017
“I’m with nature” is the theme of World Environment Day 2017, which inspires more than 1,800 events, from tree-planting in Mumbai to ivory burning in Angola to a running race through Brazil’s Iguaçu National Park. In host country Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joins UN Environment Programme’s Erik Solheim to connect with nature by paddling kayaks along the Niagara River.
2016
The day is a springboard for #WildforLife, UN Environment’s biggest-ever digital campaign and a major push to counter international wildlife crime. Host country Angola promises to curb the trading of elephant ivory. China, a key destination for illegal wildlife products, subsequently pledges to close down its domestic ivory market.
2015
World Environment Day goes viral: hosted by Milan, Italy under the theme “Seven Billion People. One Planet. Consume with Care,” it is the most popular subject on Twitter in more than 20 countries. More than 500 videos about World Environment Day are posted on YouTube.
2014
The theme “Raise Your Voice Not the Sea Level!” builds awareness of the dangers facing island nations from climate change. The next year, small island states secure agreement at the Paris climate talks to pursue the ambitious goal of limiting the increase in average global temperature to 1.5oC.
2013
Hosted by Mongolia, this year’s theme is Think.Eat.Save. The campaign addresses the huge annual waste and loss of food and aims to empower people to make informed choices to reduce the ecological impact of food production.
People around the world register more than 4,000 activities (in 2011) and visit the World Environment Day website more than 4.25 million times (in 2012). The Arab world and the United States play host for the first time and the day draws attention to climate change for three years straight.
2012
Twenty years after the Earth Summit, World Environment Day returns to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The theme of “Green Economy: Does it Include You?” amplifies UN Environment Programme’s Green Economy Initiative. The World Environment Day website records more than 4.25 million visits, a new record.
2011
The first World Environment Day Challenge sees actor Don Cheadle attract more online followers than supermodel Gisele Bündchen, whose forfeit is to create a forest. The following year, Gisele plants the first of 50,000 trees in Rio de Janeiro’s Grumari Municipal Park. People around the world register more than 4,000 activities.
2010
World Environment Day’s Legacy Initiative raises more than US $85,000 for gorilla conservation and solar lighting in villages across host country Rwanda. Voters in a global online competition choose names for several baby gorillas, spotlighting their threatened status during the International Year of Biodiversity.
2007
The theme “Melting Ice? – A Hot Topic”, hosted by Norway in Tromsø, marks the first of three consecutive years in which the day draws attention to climate change, just as the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report states that warming of the climate is unequivocal.
2006
A decade after the UN Convention to Combat Desertification entered force, World Environment Day delivers a reminder of the pressures on drylands when Algeria hosts the celebrations under the slogan “Deserts and Desertification – Don’t Desert Drylands!”
2005
World Environment is held in North America for the first time, with San Francisco hosting hundreds of events around the theme “Green Cities: Plan for the Planet.” Its profile in the year the Kyoto Protocol comes into force is lifted by the participation of former US Vice-President Al Gore and former Mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom.
2003
The main celebrations take place in Beirut, Lebanon, a first for the Arab world. The theme of “Water – Two Billion People are Dying for It!” is chosen in support of the International Year of Fresh Water.
Nations accounting for nearly one third of the world’s population take turns hosting World Environment Day, including China (twice), Russia, Japan and Turkey. The campaign goes digital.
2001
Secretary-General Kofi Annan chooses World Environment Day to launch the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, an unprecedented effort to map the health of the planet. Reflecting the theme “Connect with the World Wide Web of Life,” the international festivities take place across several cities: Torino, Italy and Havana, Cuba as well as in Hue, Vietnam and Nairobi, Kenya.
2000
UN Environment launches a fully developed World Environment Day website, making it easy for people around the world to register their activities and build a sense of global community. The main events take place in Adelaide, Australia under the theme “The Environment Millennium – Time to Act,” ahead of the international summit that sets out the Millennium Development Goals.
1998
World Environment Day highlights threats to our marine ecosystems for the first time, using the theme of “For Life on Earth – Save our Seas” in support of the International Year of the Ocean. Moscow, Russia, hosts the celebrations.
1996
Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa receives a posthumous Global 500 award during World Environment Day celebrations in Ankara, Turkey. With the award, World Environment Day throws a spotlight on the link between human and environmental rights.
1995
South Africa plays host a year after Nelson Mandela became president. Mandela attends the celebrations, drawing huge international attention to environmental themes. A year earlier, the anti-apartheid leader used the day to declare Cape Town’s Table Mountain a “gift to the Earth” and proof of South Africa's commitment to protect biodiversity.
1993
China hosts World Environment Day in Beijing, raising environmental awareness in the world’s most populous nation, under the theme “Poverty and the Environment - Breaking the Vicious Circle.” The event returns to China in 2002, hosted by the city of Shenzhen.
1992
World Environment Day is held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during the UN Conference on Environment and Development, better known as the Earth Summit. Nations negotiate landmark treaties on climate change, desertification and biodiversity, and set the course for contemporary sustainable development.
1989
A year after the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, celebrations hosted in Brussels, Belgium echo mounting concern about global warming. The theme will be revisited more than any other in subsequent World Environment Day campaigns.
1988
The main celebrations begin to rotate around the globe, starting in Bangkok, Thailand. The theme of “When People Put the Environment First, Development Will Last” comes a year after the Brundtland Report laid out its influential blueprint for sustainability.
1987
UN Environment Programme marks the day at its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, by presenting the first of its Global 500 awards to environmental champions including Wangari Maathai. The awards become a mainstay of World Environment Day celebrations through 2003.
1986
The theme “A Tree for Peace” coincides with the International Year of Peace. Reflecting World Environment Day’s growing profile, political and religious leaders including French President François Mitterrand, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni take part in a global ceremony by planting a tree and stressing the links between conflict and environmental destruction.
1981
The campaign draws attention to toxic chemicals in groundwater and food chains. The next year, UN Environment Programme’s Governing Council adopts the Montevideo Programme, setting priorities for global lawmaking that lead to major international agreements restricting or eliminating an array of hazardous chemicals and pollutants.
1979
The theme “Only One Future for Our Children” coincides with the International Year of the Child. For the first time, World Environment Day echoes a UN-designated international year, a trend that grows as environmental problems rise up on the global agenda.
1977
UN Environment Programme uses the day to highlight concern about the ozone layer, setting a trend for World Environment Day to generate vital early momentum on critical environmental issues. It takes another ten years to seal the landmark Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
1974
World Environment Day is celebrated for the first time with the slogan “Only One Earth.”
1972
The UN General Assembly designates 5 June as World Environment Day, marking the first day of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Another resolution, adopted by the General Assembly the same day, leads to the creation of UN Environment Programme.
