“Emerging Issues” is an important topic on the Rio+20 agenda. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) wishes to invite NGOs and other stakeholders to participate in the 2011 “UNEP Survey on Emerging Issues.”

The output from the survey will be used to inform UNEP’s input to the “Emerging Issues'” theme of 2012 Rio+20 conference. UNEP will analyze and rank the scores to identify the top five to ten priority emerging issues for each world region (Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, North America and West Asia), as specified by Governments and Major Groups. A short outcome report will then be produced as input to the Rio+20 process.

As part of this process, UNEP recently conducted a “Foresight Process” on emerging environmental issues, in which 21 issues were identified through consultation with more than 400 scientists worldwide and systematic debate by a panel of 21 distinguished scientists. In addition, during the development of UNEPs’ flagship publication, Global Environment Outlook - 5 (GEO-5), a further set of five emerging issues were identified.

Since the identification of the 26 issues was based on scientific opinions, UNEP now wishes to solicit the inputs of Governments and Stakeholders on the list of issues. In the survey, it is asking Governments and Stakeholders Groups to score the 26 issues based on their judgment of their importance and relevance, especially to their country or world region, and to suggest possible actions to address these issues.

The survey is available from 13 September until 30 September 2011. To access the survey, click here.

For further information, contact: Alexander Juras, Chief , Major Groups and Stakeholders Branch, UNEP Division of Regional Cooperation at Alexander.Juras@unep.org.