Why a Resolution?
The exploitation and use of animals is a key driver of the triple environmental crises of biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution, as well as the emergence of the current global COVID-19 pandemic.
Why is a Resolution Needed?
The Sustainable Development Agenda set out in UN General Assembly Resolution 70/1 envisaged a world in which “humanity lives in harmony with nature and in which wildlife and other living species are protected”. However, dedicated action to protect animals and their welfare in the UN policy process has been insufficient to date, with devastating consequences for biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution and global public and environmental health.
The existential threat for nature, animals and humans from the triple environmental crises of biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution, compounded by the devastating economic and social impacts of COVID-19, and the understanding that the main drivers of these planetary/environmental crises include those that relate to human action which impacts negatively on animal welfare calls for the urgent need to fundamentally reorientate our relationship with animals from one of exploitation to one of promoting their welfare.
The urgency to protect animals and their welfare was underscored in the 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) which highlighted animal welfare as a key issue to be specifically addressed by the UN system, as well as the 2021 High Level Political Forum (HLPF) Ministerial Declaration (paragraph 36), in which UN Member States called for “increased ambition and urgency of action to protect wildlife and other living species”.
Objective of the Resolution
The UNEP Medium-Term Strategy and Programme of Work rest on the recognition of the existence of three planetary crises –biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution – which “put us at risk of irreversibly changing our relationship with the natural world”. The strategy further aims to address an associated fourth crisis, namely the emergence of pandemic zoonotic disease.
Given that human actions that have a negative impact on animal health and welfare are identified as the critical drivers of biodiversity loss and zoonotic disease emergence and contribute significantly to climate change and environmental pollution, it follows that improving animal welfare must be fully incorporated into the UNEP Programme of Work in an integrated manner and deliver actions that are needed to reshape our consumption and production patterns towards sustainability.
To do so, as a first step, UNEP should take action to undertake a thorough analysis of the nexus between animal welfare, the environment and sustainable development to develop a greater understanding of how improving animal welfare can assist UNEP in delivering on its mandate and on in its efforts to strengthen action for Nature to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Such an analysis should include examining the causal relationship that exists between improving animal welfare and mitigating the drivers of biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution and pandemic disease emergence.
