Climate change, the global food and energy crisis, freshwater scarcity - how can deserts, their people and resources contribute towards solving some of the world's greatest challenges?
The 4th Edition of Global Environment Outlook: environment for development (GEO-4) assesses environmental change and how it affects people's security, health, social relations and material needs (human well-being) and development in general, including major atmospheric environmental issues, most notably the global challenge of climate change, and the decline in the health of ecosystems and the services that they provide.
GEO-4 and other recent assessments tell a tale of unprecedented environmental change at global and regional levels due to human activities taking place in an increasingly globalized, urbanized and industrialized world, driven by expanding flows of goods, services, capital, people, technologies, information, ideas and labour.
While the environmental challenges may sometimes seem insurmountable, they also represent opportunities - for individuals, for local communities, for businesses and for international cooperation. New and exciting avenues to achieve sustainable development are emerging through enabling environments for innovation and creative solutions by using economic and regulatory instruments, new and existing technologies, and through the empowerment of stakeholders.
How such opportunities relate to deserts will be explored in the context of emerging responses to some of our greatest global challenges.