KUWAIT:  The State of Kuwait along with nations of the globe celebrates tomorrow, Wednesday, the World Environment Day, an international occasion aimed at enhancing communities’ awareness of the necessity to preserve the ecosystem. This year’s occasion calls through its logo “Our land.

Our future, we are Generation Restoration” for collective action to safeguard the Earth, its greenery and support efforts for restoring the global natural life. The UN Environment Programme has declared that Saudi Arabia will host activities marking the 2024 Environment Day in affirmation of its leading role at the local, regional and international levels to protect the flora and fauna and elevate communities’ awareness of the necessity of safeguarding the natural resources.

The United Nations on the occasion, been celebrated since 1973, promotes the global ecological consciousness with emphasis on the environmental aspects of sustainable development. At the local level, the State of Kuwait has been exerting intensive efforts to maintain the ecosystem as part of the approach to attain the 2035 development strategy, the fourth structural masterplan 2040 (regarding regions’ development in light of forecast population growth) and the government action plan (2022-2026) on improving air quality, using less polluting fuels, executing the national strategy for waste management in addition to the strategy aimed at attaining carbon neutrality by 2050.

The state had issued the environment protection law that encompasses policies and measures aimed at safeguarding natural resources and the ecosystem through cutting pollution to improve the living quality, ensure biodiversity and rehabilitate damaged regions. Environment Public Authority had also drawn up a plan to improve air quality by renovating the national air monitoring network, installing more monitors, overhauling waste management techniques, adhere to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 2050 low carbon strategy.

On May 22, the Environment Public Authority launched its new version of the environment portal that was first set up on 2012, presenting documented information about Kuwait fauna and flora and guiding the public on means of sparing the ecosystem detrimental acts. In November 2023, EPA launched the Kuwait low carbon strategy 2050, affirming its commitment to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. In May 2023, it launched three new programs in cooperation with the UN Environment Programme and the West Asia Regional Office. In March 2022, EPA signed with the regional office of the UN Environment Programme in West Asia a memorandum of cooperation and four accords for enhancing the State of Kuwait’s capacities in the realms of protecting the environment and coping with climatic change. — KUNA