Created in 1972, World Environment Day is supposed to raise awareness of global environmental issues, and gives us all a chance as humans to look at both the problems of these issues and the possible solutions. On Thursday, the United Nations once again urged the world to fight as hard as possible against greenhouse gas emissions in order to diminish our dependence on carbon dioxide.
According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Global Warming is an issue that brings us together in the world - it affects both poor and rich countries equally: "Our world is in the grip of a dangerous carbon habit."
World Environment Day is marked by events throughout the world, and hosted officially this year by the city of Wellington in New Zealand.
New Zealand has recently claimed to have made a breakthrough in cutting methane emissions from its vast amount of livestock. Phil Goff states: "Our agricultural research organisation just last week was able to map the genome - that causes methane in ruminant animals and we believe we can vaccinate against (that)." Scientists in New Zealand are working constantly on other ways to reduce methane emissions.
Green issues have been at the forefront of political action in New Zealand for a while. The country's vast mountain ranges, beautiful beaches and pristine glaciers have contributed to its internationally recognised "green" image. New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark said: "We take pride in our clean, green identity as a nation and we are determined to take action to protect it. We appreciate that protecting the climate means behaviour change by each and every one of us."
All around the world steps are being taken to reduce emissions and push forward a new greener way of thinking and living. Asian cities such as Mumbai are planning tree-planting campaigns. The heavily polluted Gulshan Baridhara Lake in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, is being cleaned up by volunteers.
On a much larger scale proposals to cut world emissions have been drawn up, but confirmation is due in this July's G8 summit in Japan. The target is to cut global carbon dioxide emissions by 50 per cent below 1990 levels by mid-century.
This target has been received both positively and negatively. The US government thinks it unattainable. However, some nations want the cut to be bigger, suggesting that 80 per cent would be much more beneficial in lowering the risk of flooding and storms caused by Global Warming.
Global carbon emissions are still rising quickly, though, as more and more fossil fuel burning power plants and factories are constructed around the world.
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This post was written by Ben Willis on June 9, 2008