Our economic and industrial history has been one of spectacular scientific and technological breakthroughs that have delivered economic successes and multiple social benefits. However, these benefits have been accompanied by increasing levels of pollution and costs to human health and productivity, ecosystems and the economy.

Pollution from a range of sources can now be found everywhere, even in the most remote areas of the planet, including the polar caps, deep oceans and high mountains. Below the ocean’s abyssal zone, in trenches more than 10,000 meters deep, creatures have been found polluted with chemicals such as flame retardants, paint plasticizers and waterproofers. Yet despite the myriad of animals, plants and microbes being exposed to so many pollutants, the overall impacts on our ecosystems and the services they provide are largely unknown or unobserved. 

With a growing global population, the absolute numbers exposed to pollutants will increase unless urgent policies are implemented and actions taken on the ground. Pollution can have a particularly disproportionate and negative effect on the poor, the disadvantaged and the vulnerable. Consequently, pollution constitutes a significant impediment to achieving health, well-being, prosperity and the sustainable development goal to “leave no one behind”. Solutions and success stories  abound to help clean up pollutants and detoxify our environment. The longer we wait, the greater the extent of our exposure and the cost of the clean-up. Now is the time for action.

Towards a Pollution-Free Planet is the theme of the 2017 UN Environment Assembly. UN Environment is preparing a report that will provide evidence of a polluted planet; describe how acting on pollution helps achieve  the sustainable development goals; and discuss  a framework for a global agenda to address pollution.

The report is now open for Member States and stakeholders to provide comments and suggestions for a period of three weeks from 26 June 2017. The final report will be made available in English in mid-September, and in all UN languages for the UN Environment Assembly.