How the Year came about:
In April 2005, the initiative for a Year was put forward by the Tanzanian Delegation to UNESCO's Executive Board, which adopted the proposal nem. con. A Draft Resolution on proclamation of the International Year of Planet Earth in 2008 was adopted by Commission III at UNESCO's 33rd General Conference on 12 October 2005. By then, 97 UN Member States had explicitly expressed support for the initiative.

1. Hazards: reducing vulnerability to natural and human-induced hazards;
2. Earth and Health: improving understanding of the medical aspects of Earth science;
3. Resource Issues: discovering new natural resources and making them available in a sustainable manner;
4. Soil: getting under Earth's living skin;
5. Megacities: going deeper, building safer;
6. Climate change: determining the longer term variations in climate change;
7. Groundwater: detecting deep and poorly accessible groundwater;
8. Earth and life: removing some of the question marks surrounding the evolution of life;
9. Oceans: abyss of time;
10. The Deep Earth: how it influences our environment.

See also:
:: Global Launch Event (12 - 13 February 2008)
:: Photo contest on "The Changing Face of the Earth"
:: Planet Earth: Earth Sciences for Society
:: UNESCO Earth Sciences website