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Guidelines for Environmental Emergencies

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The response to environmental impacts of natural disasters and complex emergencies, as well as industrial accidents, often requires a level of technical expertise that is beyond the capacity of individual states.

An environmental emergency can be defined as a sudden-onset disaster or accident resulting from natural, technological or human-induced factors, or a combination of these, that cause or threaten to cause severe environmental damage as well as harm to human health and/or livelihoods.

This includes secondary consequences from natural hazards such as earthquakes, storms, floods, tsunamis, wildland fires, landslides and/or man-made disasters such as industrial accidents, transport accidents, chemical spills, oil spills and a multitude of other types of emergencies.
Often, governments in affected countries must seek expertise and resources available from the international community to address such crises. In these cases, international support may be provided bilaterally, directly from one assisting country to the affected country, or multilaterally, through international entities like the Joint UNEP/OCHA Environment Unit (JEU).

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