The 21st century will be a century in which humanity will face the most critical tests in order to make its existence on earth sustainable. Making the global ecosystem and biodiversity sustainable, protecting the environment, the earth's soil, ocean temperature and ecological balance are indispensable priorities for a sustainable future. In terms of the world economy, sustainable development is also a part of it: Development based on a global production cycle based entirely on renewable energy and new generation environmental technologies, prioritizing the "zero waste" philosophy, where all wastes are reused without polluting the earth.
When failure and neglect of sustainability make the world uninhabitable due to the rising global temperature, the devastation caused by drought and natural disasters in large parts of the world could create the biggest wave of disasters humanity has ever faced on earth. On June 5, when I wrote these lines, the day before was the World Environment Day. The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged governments and businesses to put sustainable development as No. 1 on their agendas and also called on them to make proposals for the development of renewable energy.
‘Only home’
Guterres' call requires that urgent global climate action and environmental protection are prioritized. Guterres, stating that the main priority of the U.N. is a healthy planet, repeated his warning that the earth is no longer able to meet the various demands of humanity. Mentioning that industries are also the backbone, Guterres emphasized that businesses should put sustainability at the center of their decision-making processes. In his words, the world is our "only home." Therefore, humanity needs to protect the health of the atmosphere, the richness and diversity on earth, ecosystems and its limited resources.
The whole world needs to accept that "to ask so much of our planet is an unsustainable way of life." On a global scale, the production-consumption cycle that exists today harms not only the world, but also the people living in the world. Guterres also points out that it is important for the international community to support the use of traditional knowledge and methods to help protect sensitive ecosystems.
At the Stockholm+50 environmental meeting recently held, it was once again emphasized that the success of the U.N.'s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) depends only on a healthy planet. To this end, concrete proposals have been identified to significantly accelerate the spread of renewable energy around the world, including making renewable technologies and necessary raw materials available to everyone, reducing bureaucracy, changing subsidies, and tripling investments that prioritize sustainability. More than 3 billion people are affected by the degraded ecosystem. Pollution causes about 9 million premature deaths every year. Most of the more than 1 million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction within decades. Humanity must understand that "the only way to move forward is to work with nature, not against it."