Environmental crime and its global impact.
A joint Interpol-UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) assessment in June revised dramatically upward the official cost of global environmental crime. The report estimates this cost to have increased 26% to 91-258 billion dollars as of June 2016 from 70-213 billion dollars in 2014. In part this is a correction from previous underestimates, but it also reflects a genuine and substantial growth. Over the past ten years, the turnover of environmental crime has risen by at least 5-7% per year, two to three times faster than global GDP.
Environmental crime will continue to degrade the biosphere, exacerbating climate change and species' extinctions.
Such crimes will facilitate the operations of a wide range of dangerous organisations, from terrorists and insurgents to gangsters.
The issue will cause increasing tension between the West and those failing to address the problem, such as China.
