| Increasing globalisation of economic activity and accompanying economic growth have been factors in the worldwide loss of natural environments and biodiversity loss, and these losses have accelerated since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Emissions of many types of pollutants and wastes from human activity are rising globally and are exceeding the capacity of natural environments to absorb and neutralize them. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the quality and size of some natural sinks for neutralizing them (such as forests) are declining. Consequently, these wastes are accumulating in many environments and pose a growing threat to human welfare and to sustainable economic development. There are, for instance, global concerns about... |
