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The top ten world environmental issues with vocabulary, listening practice and pronunciation. Learn useful vocabulary and the pronunciation to be able to talk and write about these issues.

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1.  People need different bags in their lives to receive something useful or useless. Although some people insist on using cloth bags to receive them, they still need to use garbage bags to collect garbage. Plastic bags are a form of pollution. They are very cheap, but they can last forever. Burning can be harmful.

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1.      Do you agree that global warming is one of the biggest threats to our environment? Why/why not?

2.      Money that the government and individuals spend to tackle environmental problems would be better used on healthcare and education. Do you agree?

3.      Do you agree that some environmental problems are better dealt with by the government, while others are better dealt with by individuals? Which ones?

4.      Do you agree that environmental problems should be addressed by developed countries, rather than asking developing countries for involvement?

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Below are examples of IELTS Environmental writing task 2 questions.

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The Fourth and final Global Authors Meeting of the Sixth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-6) will be held at the Regent Hotel on 1 Cuscaden Road in Singapore, from 19 - 23 February 2018. The meeting is co-organised by UN Environment and the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources of Singapore. The major theme of the meeting is cities and urbanization. Significant communications and outreach events are planned around this theme throughout the week of meetings.

As in previous meetings, five main groups will participate in the meeting, including:

* Authors and experts who are writing the report;

* The High-level Intergovernmental and Stakeholder Advisory Group, which is responsible for ensuring the policy relevance of the Global Environment Outlook;

* The Scientific Advisory Panel, which will work to ensure the scientific credibility of the Global Environment Outlook process;

* And the authors drafting team for the Summary for Policy Makers;

* The Global Environment Outlook Fellows, who are assisting the authors on research questions and other areas of developing the chapters.

With so many groups participating, the meeting has several key objectives:

Begin drafting of the Summary for Policy Makers;

Address all comments received from the first order draft review for the first Policy and Outlooks chapters;

Move the Policy Effectiveness chapters towards second order draft quality, by:

Improving coherence of chapter text

Reducing overlap and duplication in the coverage of issues

Ensuring adequate coverage of each thematic and cross-cutting issues

Move the Outlooks chapters towards second order draft quality by:

completing the scenario/outlook review chapter

advancing the methodology and conclusions chapters

finishing the 'seeds' chapter

Gather more data for the Outlooks component of the report with another stakeholder visioning workshop;

Advance the drafting of the cross-cutting issues and 'common threads' throughout Global Environment Outlook.

The meeting will involve a lot of drafting and discussion sessions that will begin after the opening ceremonies and high-level panel discussions. As in previous Global Author's meetings, Singapore will host an Outlooks workshop and Stakeholder dialogue on the 21 st of February. The workshop will be geared towards gathering data for the outlooks component while the high-level panel discussions will seek to lay the groundwork for a Global Environment Outlook for Cities by having conversations on how to achieve green cities. The Outlooks workshop and stakeholder dialogue will be followed by a green city site visit and after that a dinner reception where stakeholders are invited.

The inception meeting of the Global Environment Outlook for Youth- Asia-Pacific, which is led by the UN Environment Regional Office for Asia-Pacific, will happen in parallel to the Fourth Global Authors Meeting in Singapore. The GEO for Youth publication will be 'drafted by youth, for youth.' The inception meeting in Singapore will discuss and agree on the GEO for Youth report structure, content and placeholders for multimedia features, case stories, etc., and then the author team will begin drafting the publication which will continue into the period that follows the meeting. The 1 st draft will be subject to review and comments available by the 2 nd GEO for Youth Author's meeting planned to coincide with the Environment Day in June 2018 and held at the Tongji University, Shanghai in China. This conference will further develop the draft while addressing the first round of reviewer comments. The 2 nd order draft will be reviewed and comments provided before the 3 rd and final GEO for Youth Author Meeting in September in Tongji University which will coincide with the Asia-Pacific Leadership Programme on Environment and Sustainability, Tongji University.

The expected completion of the GEO-6 for Youth - Asia-Pacific is October 2018, the development of which will follow the proven Global Environment Outlook process and its participatory approach. Young authors and reviewers have been identified through an open invitation to partners active in education or research on sustainability. Academic and research institutions in the region have volunteered 47 young scholars and practitioners to serve as authors and reviewers. In addition to the registered youth reviewers, the team of authors who developed the GEO-6 Regional Assessment for Asia-Pacific will be invited to review successive drafts and provide feedback. The regional Assessment will serve as the primary source of input for the GEO for Youth publication; however, the author team will undertake an additional literature review and analysis to update and complement the existing data and information.

The Fourth Global Authors meeting will combine several activities which will encourage broad collaboration among the participants, information sharing and networking. Although authors will focus mainly on improving their draft chapters, the opportunity for collaboration is expected to allow a more holistic view to be presented in the report, in line with the focus on providing guidance on how to best achieve Sustainable Development Goals.

Click here for more information on the Fourth author's meeting in Singapore.

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The Sixth Global Environment Outlook: The Road to Singapore (Part A) | Global Environmental Outlook (GEO)

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The Fourth and final Global Authors Meeting of the Sixth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-6) will be held at the Regent Hotel on 1 Cuscaden Road in Singapore, from 19 - 23 February 2018. The meeting is co-organised by UN Environment and the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources of Singapore.

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GEF investments are predicated on the delivery of global environmental benefits in biodiversity, climate change mitigation, international waters, land degradation and forests, and chemicals and waste. Increasingly, GEF is seeking to deliver multiple environmental benefits through integrated investments across the various dimensions of the global environment.
Biodiversity
Global environmental benefits resulting from GEF's biodiversity financing include:

Conservation of globally significant biodiversity;

Sustainable use of the components of globally significant biodiversity; and

Fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources, including by appropriate access to genetic resources.

Climate Change Mitigation
Global environmental benefit in the Climate Change Mitigation focal area is the sustainable mitigation of the concentration of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere. Specifically, it includes:

Mitigated GHG emissions;

Increased use of renewable energy and decreased use of fossil energy resources;

Improved energy efficiency;

Increased adoption of innovative technologies and management practices for GHG emission reduction and carbon sequestration; and

Conservation and enhanced carbon stocks in agriculture, forest, and other land use.

Land Degradation
Global environmental benefits resulting from GEF's focus on land degradation focal area, specifically addressing desertification and deforestation, include:

Improved provision of agro-ecosystem and forest ecosystem goods and services;

Mitigated/avoided greenhouse gas emissions and increased carbon sequestration in production landscapes;

Conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in productive landscapes; and

Reduced pollution and siltation of international waters.

International Waters
Global environmental benefits targeted by GEF's work in international waters relate to transboundary concerns, including:

Multi-state cooperation to reduce threats to international waters;

Reduced pollution load in international waters from nutrient enrichment and other land-based activities;

Restored and sustained freshwater, coastal, and marine ecosystems goods and services, including globally significant biodiversity, as well as maintained capacity of natural systems to sequester carbon; and

Reduced vulnerability to climate variability and climate-related risks, and increased ecosystem resilience.

Chemicals and Waste
GEF's long term goal in chemicals and waste is to prevent the exposure of humans and the environment to harmful chemicals and waste of global importance, including persistent organic pollutants, mercury and ozone depleting substances, through a significant reduction in the production, use, consumption and emissions/releases of those chemicals and waste. Global environmental benefits resulting from GEF's objectives in the area of chemicals and waste include:

Protected human health and environment through the reduction and elimination of mercury use and prevention of anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds;

Protected human health and environment through the phase out of production and consumption of ozone depleting substances;

Reduced risks on human health and the environment through reducing and eliminating production, use and releases of Persistent Organic Pollutants and their waste; and

Reduced risks on human health and the environment through sound management of chemicals and waste of global concern.

Sustainable Forest Management/REDD+
Multiple global environmental benefits addressing the emphasis placed by UNFCCC, CBD and UNCCD on the importance of conservation, sustainable use and management of forests, include:

Reduction in forest loss and forest degradation;

Maintenance of the range of environmental services and products derived from forests; and

Enhanced sustainable livelihoods for local communities and forest-dependent peoples.

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GEF investments are predicated on the delivery of global environmental benefits in biodiversity, climate change mitigation, international waters, land degradation and forests, and chemicals and waste. Increasingly, GEF is seeking to deliver multiple environmental benefits through integrated investments across the various dimensions of the global environment.

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Electricity is a resource that every household must have. People tend to forget to turn off some of the electrical equipment they no longer use, and the amount of electricity consumed over the course of a night is a huge sum.

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People usually don't have a sense of frugality when they use paper. Paper comes from trees, and people often use it because of the cheap paper.

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Pollution (Land, Air and Water Pollution)

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"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time."

The mournful remark supposedly made by foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey at dusk on 3 August 1914 referred to Britain's imminent entry into the first world war. But the sentiment captures something of our own moment, in the midst of an intensifying campaign against nature.

According to the World Wildlife Fund's 2016 Living Planet Report, over the last four decades the international animal population was reduced by nearly 60%. More than a billion fewer birds inhabit North America today compared to 40 years ago. In Britain, certain iconic species (grey partridges, tree sparrows, etc) have fallen by 90%. In Germany, flying insects have declined by 76% over the past 27 years. Almost half of Borneo's orangutans died or were removed between 1999 and 2015. Elephant numbers have dropped by 62% in a decade, with on average one adult killed by poachers every 15 minutes.

We inherited a planet of beauty and wonders - and we're saying goodbye to all that.

The cultural historian Paul Fussell once identified the catastrophe of the first world war with the distinctive sensibility of modernity, noting how 20th century history had "domesticate[d] the fantastic and normalize[d] the unspeakable."

Consider, then, the work of climate change.

In February, for instance, scientists recorded temperatures 35 degrees above the historical average in Siberia, a phenomenon that apparently corresponded with the unprecedented cold snap across Europe.

As concentrated CO2 intensifies extreme events, a new and diabolical weather will, we're told, become the norm for a generation already accustomising itself to such everyday atrocities as about eight million tons of plastics are washed into the ocean each year.

It may seem impossible to imagine, that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we're now in the process of doing."

This passage from the New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert concluded a piece on global warming, which was published way back in 2005. Over the 13 years since, the warnings from scientists have grown both more specific and desperate - and yet the march to destruction has only redoubled its pace.

The extraordinary - almost absurd - contrast between what we should be doing and what's actually taking place fosters low-level climate denialism. Coral experts might publicise, again and again and again, the dire state of the Great Barrier Reef but the ongoing political inaction inevitably blunts their message.

It can't be so bad, we think: if a natural wonder were truly under threat, our politicians wouldn't simply stand aside and watch.

The first world war killed 20 million people and maimed 21 million others. It shattered the economy of Europe, displaced entire populations, and set in train events that culminated, scarcely two decades later, with another, even more apocalyptic slaughter

And it, too, was a disaster foretold, a widely-anticipated cataclysm that proceeded more-on-less schedule despite regular warnings about what was to come.

As early as 1898, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia initiated a conference to discuss international arbitration and limit the arms race taking place in Europe. At its opening session at The Hague, he noted that the competition between nations, in which each country was building up its forces to defend against its neighbours, had "transform[ed] the armed peace into a crushing burden that weighs on all nations and, if prolonged, will lead to the very cataclysm that it seeks to avert."

Over the next years, the rivalries intensified, leading to further militarisation and a complex series of (often secret) treaties, as, between 1908 and 1913, the military spending of the major powers increased by 50%.

In 1912, the international socialist movement had staged an emergency meeting in Basel in Switzerland in which representatives from almost every nation spoke out for peace.

"The great European peoples are constantly on the point of being driven against one another," the congress resolved, "although these attempts are against humanity and reason cannot be justified by even the slightest pretext of being in the interest of the people."

Yet in early 1914, Winston Churchill noted that "the world is arming as it has never armed before". The eventual declaration of war in August that year was still a shock - but only in the sense that those attending a patient expiring from a long illness might be startled by the death rattle.

The appeals to humanity and reason did not move states jostling for trade and commercial advantages. For the people of Europe, the arms race was disastrous; for specific governments, it made perfect sense, for those who did not compete risked falling behind.

The same might be said today.

From a global perspective, the necessity to abandon fossil fuels cannot be denied. But for individual economies, change risks undermining comparative advantages.

If we don't sell coal, says Malcolm Turnbull, our competitors will - which was, of course precisely the logic of the British fleet expansion in 1908.

The devastation of the first world war eventually engendered a wave of revolt from a populace appalled at the carnage their politicians had wrought.

Climate change has not yet spurred an equivalent of the mutinies in France or the revolution in Petrograd or the uprising in Berlin.

Yet Labor's appalling equivocation over the Adani mine - a piece of environmental vandalism for which there can be no justification - illustrates the urgency with which we need a new and different type of politics.

The stakes could not be higher. Lamps are going out all over the natural world ... and no one will ever see them lit again.

* Jeff Sparrow is a Guardian Australia columnist
Topics

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Climate change is a disaster foretold, just like the first world war | Jeff Sparrow

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"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time." The mournful remark supposedly made by foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey at dusk on 3 August 1914 referred to Britain's imminent entry into the first world war.

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Environment vocabulary from IELTS Speaking

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Environment vocabulary from IELTS Speaking

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You may be asked questions about the environment or environmental problems in your country. Read the following IELTS-style questions and answers below and pay attention to the phrases in bold. Use the 'Definitions' section at the bottom of the page to check the meaning of any phrases you don't understand.

Part 1-style questions

Examiner: Are there any environmental problems in your country?
Kelly: Yes ... we have a serious issue with pollution levels in some of our big cities ... exhaust fumes from cars and lorriesare definitely one reason for the problem but we also have a lot of heavy industry in some areas and this also results in poor air quality ...

Examiner: Do you take an interest in nature?
Jenny: Well ... I'm a city person through and through and don't get back to nature very often I'm afraid ... but like everyone else I'm fascinated by the natural world and I like watching documentaries showing wild animals in their natural habitat ...

Examiner: Do you or your family take steps to help the environment?
Mira: My parents have always tried to make us aware of our impact on the environment ... they're really into energy conservation ... and always try to buy environmentally friendly products if they have the chance ...

Part 2-style task

Describe an environmental problem that has been in the news. You should say

when this was

where the event happened

what actually took place

and say how you felt about this problem.

Martin: Well ... this is an interesting question ... there are so many issues I could think of ... natural disasters like earthquakes and floods seem to be in the news almost every year ... but there was one story recently about some animals that were under threat ... it wasn't focused on one place in particular ... it was looking at various animals that could actually become extinct in different African countries ... if we don't take steps to protect them ... these were really iconic animals like gorillas ... leopards ... rhinos ... and apparently they're now listed as endangered species ... what made it really depressing was they were in danger thanks to us ... in some cases it was due to a loss of habitat either because people need more agricultural production ... or even worse I think ... because of hunting and ... I hate to think of future generations being robbed of the chance to see creatures like these in their natural environment ... it's lucky we have lots of organisations that focus on wildlife conservation ... hopefully with their help we can put pressure on those in power to do something to stop creatures like these ...

Part 3-style questions

Examiner: What do you think is the main danger the world faces in terms of the environment?
Spencer: Well ... climate change is a real issue ... in my country we have flash floods and heatwaves on a yearly basis ... so yes ... I think global warming is the biggest issue.

Examiner: What examples are there of how we damage the natural world?
Stella: There are so many examples ... there are factories that empty toxic waste into rivers and oceans ... that damage the coastline ... the way we destroy vast areas of land and rain forests in search of fossil fuels or to increase agricultural production ...

Examiner: In which ways do we respond well to environmental problems?
Mathius: Well ... on the one hand there are various worldwide agencies that are always the first on the scene with humanitarian aid after natural and man-made disasters ... and on the other hand we have environmental pressure groups that are constantly raising awareness of issues and trying to stop disasters happening ...

Definitions

to die out : see 'to become extinct'

heavy industry : the manufacture of heavy articles and materials in large numbers

man-made disaster: widespread damage or loss of life brought about by the action of humans

pressure group: a group of people who try to raise awareness of issues and try to affect the views and actions of people and organisations

Next Step? Test yourself on topic vocabulary. Sign up to IELTS Speaking: Advanced for vocabulary tests and whole lot more!

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You may be asked questions about the environment or environmental problems in your country. Read the following IELTS-style questions and answers below and pay attention to the phrases in bold. Use the 'Definitions' section at the bottom of the page to check the meaning of any phrases you don't understand.

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POSSIBLE TOPIC 3 - transport and pollution

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POSSIBLE TOPIC 3 - transport and pollution

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"One way to reduce traffic and pollution in cities is to get people to use public transport instead of private cars. For this reason, governments should make laws to ban private vehicles from city centres."

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"Water is the most basic essential of life and, if it is limited or expensive to provide in certain parts of the world, then people should be encouraged to relocate and settle in places where water is more plentiful."

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"People all over the world produce waste and other pollution carelessly. They
seem unaware of the harm they cause and there are no rules to make offenders deal with the damage to the environment."

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The definition of “sustainability” is the study of how natural systems function, remain diverse and produce everything it needs for the ecology to remain in balance.

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A wide use of water resource causes the high demand of water supply.  Relocating water would be a reasonable and practicable way.

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Global warming, also referred to as climate change, is the observed century-scale rise in the average temperature of the Earth's climate system and its related effects.

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An endangered species is a species which has been categorized as very likely to become extinct.

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Water resources may be  affected for the reason of climate change which is hardly prevented. It would be a effective way to solve problems of lacking water in some areas.

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Because of the problem of expanding human population in some regions, competition for water would grow. It can be a good idea to relocate in places where water is more plentiful.

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All of human uses require fresh water. It is a way to make use of water resources and make sure most benefits of human.

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The greenhouse effect is the process by which radiation from a planet's atmosphere warms the planet's surface to a temperature above what it would be without its atmosphere.

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Definitions of important (but not easy) terms

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Definitions of important (but not easy) terms

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Useful articles and videos (to generate ideas)

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Useful articles and videos (to generate ideas)

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recycle
global warming
rain forest
unleaded petrol
fossil fuels
organic
genetically modified
greenhouse
erosion
contaminated
environmentalists
emissions
biodegradable packaging
acid rain
green belt
ecosystem