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This June 5th is reached thirty-five years held the Conference of the United Nations Human Development sobe, which was held in Stockholm in 1972.

From this conference emerged the proposal to declare the 5th of June every year as World Environment Day. Also to create the United Nations Programme on Environment, UNEP. Both proposals were approved by the General Assembly of the multinational organization.

For 2007 World Environment Day is organized by UNEP under the theme “Melting Ice: A Hot Topic?”.

For the occasion, UNEP introduced a 238-page report entitled “Global Outlook for Ice and Snow”, prepared with the participation of 70 experts from different nationalities.

The report warns of the danger that hangs over humanity by the gradual melting of polar ice and water trapped in the snowy mountains of the world. He explained that the process is already evident, with greater emphasis in the Arctic (North Pole).

Estimated land ice of “Greenland and Antarctica represent almost 99 percent of freshwater ice in the world.” If both melted completely, sea level would rise 64 meters. It is estimated that by the end of the 21st century recorded higher temperatures in the Antarctic area.

But the impacts of global warming are not just the future. At the last meeting of Governmental Experts on Climate Change which examined the vulnerability to it, it is estimated that “60% of current migratory movements are caused by climate change and natural disasters.

1,300 million people worldwide, living under the poverty line, have a high dependence on agriculture, forestry and fishery resources and biomass for energy, which makes them an especially vulnerable to the effects climate change. Water scarcity, caused by climate change impacts, will tension between 7 and 77 million people in 2020. ”

At first, developed countries were reluctant to take action. Multinationals paid experts to refute the theories of global climate change caused by the massive production of greenhouse gases. Now no one disputes the scientific certainty of this phenomenon.

The present President of the USA, a country that is the biggest polluter in the world and more reluctant to commit to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, has promised to build on the meeting of the richest countries on earth The so-called Group of Eight (G-8) to propose some that could be implemented from 2012, when it completes the overall agreement referred to in the Kyoto Protocol.

Through the Kyoto Protocol signatory countries undertake to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases to levels that existed in 1990. The United States has resisted signing this Protocol.

Although it would be naive to expect minimally positive initiatives of the current U.S. administration, the fact that talk of taking or proposing measures is almost a win, against last position to refuse any compromise and even of denying the certainty of climate change global.

Climate change caused by human activities can be reversed:

- Reducing the burning of fossil fuels (gas, oil and coal) and forest fires.

- Promoting alternative sources of energy production such as water, the wind, the tidal and solar power.

- Protecting the forests that still exist and increasing the area of these. Forests are the major sinks of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas produced by human activities. Forests consume CO2 and give back oxygen.