Nairobi, 24 February
2011- A major sustainable development conference
in Brazil next year offers a key opportunity
to accelerate and to scale-up a global transition
to a low-carbon, resource-efficient Green
Economy, a meeting of the world's environment
ministers has signaled.
Potential challenges, including new kinds
of trade barriers, need to be managed. But
a Green Economy offers a way of realizing
sustainable development in the 21st century
by "building economies, enhancing social
equity and human well-being, while reducing
environmental risks and ecological scarcities".
Ministers called on
the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to support
countries keen to operationalize such a
transition and to play a key and 'active'
role in putting the challenges, opportunities
and strategies towards a Green Economy firmly
on the agenda for next year's landmark meeting.
The UN Conference on
Sustainable Development 2012, or Rio+20,
also needs to address how the world can
better manage and govern the environment
including by evolving and strengthening
the institutions responsible.
The ministers responsible
for the environment, who have been meeting
this week at UNEP headquarters, expressed
concern that the overall efforts of the
United Nations and nations in respect to
the 'environmental pillar' of sustainable
development remained weak, underfunded and
fractured.
In their summary of
discussions, released today at the close,
many delegates said countries needed to
move beyond pinpointing shortcomings and
to focus on a real reform agenda in the
run up to Rio+20.
"The efforts to
strengthen international environment governance
should be about more than rationalization
of fragmentation and seeking efficiencies.
Instead it should be about re-envisioning
and even dreaming about what is required
institutionally for environment and sustainability,
and putting this in place," says the
summary, whose chair was Rosa Aguilar Rivero,
Minister for Environment, Rural and Marine
Affairs of Spain and newly elected President
of UNEP's Governing Council.
The summary will form
a key input of ministers responsible for
the environment into the year long preparations
for the Rio+20 conference, which is scheduled
for early June 2012.
Close to 100 ministers
and over 130 countries attended this week's
UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial
Environment Forum alongside members of civil
society, the private sector and scientific
bodies.
Green Economy and International
Environment Governance (IEG)
The two themes - the
Green Economy and International Environment
Governance (IEG)-reflect the two major themes
of the Rio+20 conference which are the Green
Economy in the context of sustainable development
and poverty eradication and the institutional
framework for sustainable development.
In support of these
discussions, UNEP presented a pivotal new
report on how a transition to a Green Economy
might be achieved by countries.
The report suggests
that with the right public policies, an
investment of two per cent of global GDP
into ten key sectors can grow the global
economy over the coming 40 years, boost
employment overall and keep humanity's footprint
within ecological boundaries.
The report underlined
that a Green Economy transition is as relevant
to developing countries as it is to developed
countries and that the precise complexion
of such a transition needs to reflect the
individual circumstances of nations.
Among the final decisions
made today, governments also requested UNEP
in partnership with other UN agencies, to
develop a ten-year 'framework' of programmes
aimed at boosting sustainable consumption
and production across societies.
The initiative, which
also reflects the ideas and aims of the
Green Economy, will be further key input
towards the success of Rio+20.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General
and UNEP Executive Director, said: "The
world is again on the Road to Rio, nearly
20 years after the Earth Summit that has
defined humanity's response to sustainable
development over the intervening years."
"In Nairobi this
week, the world's ministers responsible
for the environment have underlined their
leadership and their determination to make
Rio+20 a success by articulating a forward-looking
agenda-one that reflects the realities of
a new century and the urgency of bringing
together the three pillars of sustainable
development: economic, social and environmental,"
he said.
"This week ministers
also engaged on the complex issues of IEG
- how do we strengthen the maze of institutional
and financial arrangements relating to the
environment, globally and nationally in
order to effect real, tangible and transformational
change that decouples growth from degradation?"
said Mr Steiner.
"As a result of
this Governing Council, the direction for
that reform has been given a greater focus,
new momentum and taken on a greater sense
of urgency which will inform the discussion,
debate and finally the outcome of Rio+20
next year," added Mr. Steiner.
Concluding the meeting
and considering her new role as President
of UNEP's Governing Council, Rosa Aguilar
Rivero, Minister for Environment, Rural
and Marine Affairs of Spain said:
"UNEP has been
strengthened thanks to the fruitful debate
on the two main themes addressed at the
ministerial consultations and I intend to
foster the active and effective participation
of all relevant stakeholders and particularly
civil society, NGOs, Trade Unions and Women
during my tenure."
From Widening Action
on Climate Change and Improving Air Quality
to a New Science Body on Biodiversity
The Governing Council
also adopted some 17 key decisions across
UNEP's Programme of Work. These included:
Assessments of short-lived
climate forcers such as black carbon, methane,
fluorinated gases and tropospheric or 'low-level'
ozone.
While emissions of carbon
dioxide remain the central and over-arching
challenge, science is indicating that these
other so-called non-CO2 pollutants are currently
contributing significantly to climate change.
Fast action to phase
them down could not only assist in reducing
temperature rises over the next half century
and reduce melting in the Arctic, but could
provide multiple, Green Economy benefits
across areas such as agriculture and air
quality improvements.
Governments backed a
new interactive, web-based project to keep
the world environmental situation under
review. UNEP live, its provisional name,
promises to be more dynamic; interactive
and able to provide governments and the
public with almost real-time data on environmental
trends. A pilot phase of the system is set
to be completed in 2012.
Governments requested
UNEP, in cooperation with the UN Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),
the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
and the UN Development Programme (UNDP),
to convene the first plenary of the Intergovernmental
science-policy Platform on Biodiversity
and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
IPBES, aimed at fast tracking scientific
knowledge on the state of the natural world
to policy-makers in order reverse the losses
of forests to fisheries, was given the green
light at a meeting in Busan, Republic of
Korea, in 2010 and endorsed by the UN General
Assembly in December.
Another decision agreed
today also supports improved cooperation
between developing countries - the so-called
South/South cooperation - on biodiversity
as part of a new more than ten-year initiative.
Governments requested
UNEP to organize a major international meeting
on how to accelerate cuts in pollution and
wastes to seas and oceans under its Global
Programme of Action for the Protection of
the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities.
They also requested
that UNEP works more closely with bodies
such as the International Maritime Organization
in order to catalyze action to reduce marine
pollution from shipping.
Governments also requested
UNEP to work with the UN's Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in
order to prepare a report on how the UN
as a whole can better respond to environmental
emergencies from droughts and floods to
chemical and other spills.
The Government of Switzerland
today announced funding of around US$300,000
in order to support this and related work
on environment-linked emergency response
and preparedness.
Various decisions on
chemicals and hazardous wastes were agreed.
Governments requested
UNEP to see how the various chemicals and
hazardous waste treaties-known as the Basel,
Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions-can
work more closely together at the national
level.
Nations also requested
UNEP to build public awareness and strengthen
the capacity and ability of developing countries,
and in particular in Africa, in respect
to the heavy metals lead and cadmium including
the disposal of old batteries.
Governments also approved
UNEP's core Environment Fund for the period
2012-2013 at just over US$190 million.