21 February 2011
Honourable Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to the 26th Session of the UNEP
Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment
Forum (GC/GMEF).
Nearly 20 years on, we are again travelling
the Road to Rio.
The twin themes here echo to the agenda
next year in Brazil.
The Green Economy within the context of
sustainable development and poverty eradication
and an International Framework for Sustainable
Development, including International Environment
Governance (IEG).
Thus this week's meeting
of the ministers responsible for the environment
takes on special meaning and a special responsibility.
It is no longer a question
of if we should act, or that it would even
be sensible to act, we live an age of the
imperative to act.
Your deliberations and
decisions taken here are key ? key to shaping,
scripting and sharpening the issues to be
considered at the numerous preparatory meetings
taking place across the globe in 2011 towards
the UN Conference on Sustainable Development
or Rio+20.
These meetings and discussions
will require intellectual and analytical
engagement to ensure that when nations meet
in Brazil next year, a success is registered
in transformational terms rather than an
endorsement of the status-quo.
That engagement will
benefit from the dialogue and directions
transmitted from Nairobi this week.
Rio+20 represents a
real opportunity to mature and to evolve
the sustainable development landscape from
a 20th century of potential threats to meet
a 21st century of real and all too tangible
challenges ? economic, environmental and
social.
The decisions taken
over this year and next are also likely
to define in whole or in part the future
of UNEP within the UN system and beyond.
In doing so, it will
define not only the direction of sustainable
development for many years to come, but
the scope and contribution of environment
ministers to sustainable development and
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
So this GC/GMEF ? this
early milestone on the Road to Rio ? is
no small or routine matter.
It should and must echo
to the realities of the here and now and
the emerging issues of today and tomorrow
? firmly grounded in science, but science
that is allowed to fully graduate to decisively
inform and shape national and international
policy choices.
In 1992, many of the
sustainability challenges were still glimpsed
as future concerns.
In those days it was
still prudent to act in advance of likely
possibilities ? it was a world of the precautionary
approach.
Today we live in the
age of the imperative to act because so
many of those scenarios have ? or are fast
becoming ? realities.
These realities do not
so much imply a failure of Rio 1992.
But they point to a
need to mature and evolve the policies and
institutions responsible ? nationally and
internationally ? to keep pace with a fast
changing world.
As a result we are rapidly
reaching the real risk of tipping points
and irreversible changes to ecosystems and
life support services ? services that underpin
economies, employment and the possibility
of life on this planet in the first place.
The policy statement
looks down this Road to Rio and spotlights
what is at stake, alongside the opportunities
for aligning the three pillars of sustainable
development into a mutually, re-enforcing
whole.
In a way envisaged by
the architects of Rio 1992, but also in
a way that builds upon those foundations
in a world where environmental change is
no longer a notable or rare phenomenon.
But is a phenomenon
increasingly undermining the economic and
social pillars of sustainable development
and making countries, communities and companies
ever more vulnerable to the kinds of shocks
and crises that swept the world in 2008.
A phenomenon that is
perpetuating and aggravating inequalities
for this generation and is likely, if unaddressed,
to deepen inequity for those generations
to come.
The tragic floods last
year in Pakistan and Colombia, and more
recently in Australia, and the heat waves
in Russia are just some of the latest manifestations
of a rising tide of extreme weather events
that no longer impact just within national
borders.
In the past, such events
were seen as 'local tragedies' triggering
national and international relief efforts.
Today however, we can
see how such events can impact both locally
but also globally, affecting ever more lives
by dramatically moving food markets and
supply chains world-wide.
Such is our mutual inter-connectedness;
the increasingly fine balance between plenty
and scarcity and a fundamental reliance
on the environmental security or vulnerability
of places and people hundreds or thousand
of kilometers away.
In this policy statement
I would also like to reflect on not only
the prospects for Rio but on the way UNEP
? with your support and leadership ? has
been laying the paving stones towards and
up to Rio+20 in 2012.
How part of that road
is being given direction and meaning through
the analysis and opportunities inherent
in the Green Economy and how the determination
to move along such a pathway to sustainable
development could be accelerated and scaled
up at Rio+20
Provide some reflections on where we are
with International Environment Governance
in the context of the Rio meeting and where
this debate can be evolved and matured
+ More
Patricia Okoed-Bukumunhe
wins UNEP Young Environmental Journalist
Award
Nairobi, 21 February
2011 - A Ugandan radio journalist has won
a prestigious new journalism award from
the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP), outclassing entries from over 100
correspondents from across the African continent.
Patricia Okoed-Bukumunhe won the UNEP Young
Environmental Journalist Award for her report
'Climate Change and Uganda', broadcast on
Radio France International. Jury members
described the entry as "original, cutting
edge environmental reporting".
Ms. Okoed-Bukumunhe
was presented with her specially-commissioned
trophy by UNEP Executive Director Achim
Steiner, US Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Lisa Jackson and members of
the jury. The ceremony was held on the opening
day of the UNEP Governing Council / Global
Ministerial Environment Forum where environment
ministers from across the world, senior
government officials and civil society are
meeting from 21 - 24 February.
Ms. Okoed-Bukumunhe's
winning radio entry described the far-reaching
effects of climate change on Uganda's environment
and economy. Her piece covered the impact
of increasingly erratic weather patterns
on the coffee industry - Uganda's largest
export - and how the melting of snow on
the peaks of the Rwenzori Mountains could
damage the country's tourism industry. The
report also showed how climate change is
putting increasing pressure on water supplies
to Uganda's homes and agriculture and even
leading to a potential border dispute.
"As a journalist,
I feel it is essential that issues to do
with climate change and our changing environment
continue to be communicated to readers,
listeners and viewers in Africa", said
Ms. Okoed-Bukumunhe.
"It is important
to show that climate change and its effects
are not just a Western phenomenon but are
a reality in Africa, with increasingly severe
consequences for us all. I'm honoured to
win the first UNEP Young Environmental Journalist
Award and to be recognised not only for
my job, which is my passion, but for something
I hope can contribute to the movement to
protect our planet", she added.
A broadcast journalist
with 13 years experience in local and international
media, Ms. Okoed-Bukumunhe works as a News
Editor and anchor at Capital Radio - a private
FM radio station in Uganda. She is also
a freelance journalist with Paris-based
Radio France International and has worked
with ORF radio in Austria as a freelance
producer handling features and magazine
shows. She lists her main fields of interest
as the environment, health and women's issues.
As part of her prize,
Ms. Okoed-Bukumunhe will take part in a
professional exchange visit to the United
States, following a specially-designed "green
itinerary". She will travel across
the country, interacting with environmental
experts, leading environmental journalists,
scientists and public figures.
UN Under-Secretary-General
and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner
congratulated the winner on her success.
"Crisp, clear,
coherent, factual and authoritative journalism,
delivered in an engaging and lively style,
is needed as never before in a world of
rapidly growing environmental challenges
and multiple media vying for the public's
attention-from newspapers, radio and TV
to increasingly the internet and information
on mobile phones. This is why UNEP, with
support from the Government of the United
States, decided to establish this new award",
said Mr. Steiner.
"The high quality
of submissions to this first UNEP Young
Environmental Journalist Award underlines
how reporters in Africa are rising to the
challenge of dealing with the complexities
of the world in which we live and informing
the public of the opportunities for a different
development path as we travel along the
Road to Rio for the crucial sustainable
development conference next year. Congratulations
to Patricia Okoed-Bukumunhe for her excellent
reports on climate change and its importance
to Africa and Uganda -one of the overarching
issues facing this continent and facing
the world as we look towards a transition
to a low carbon, resource-efficient Green
Economy," he added.
Launched in November
2010, the UNEP Young Environmental Journalist
Award aims to showcase excellence in the
field of environmental reporting and to
nurture new talent that will help to shape
opinion on the environment in Africa, and
beyond, in years to come. The award is made
possible though funding from the US Department
of State.
A total of 110 entries
were received from television, radio, online
and print journalists in 24 countries. African
journalists from 25 to 35 years were eligible
to enter, with each candidate submitting
one article or report on an environmental
theme. Entries covered themes as diverse
as role of traditional 'medicine men' in
protecting biodiversity in Kenya, the environmental
impacts of charcoal use in Malawi to the
public health risk posed by vegetables contaminated
with polluted water in Tanzania.
The jury for the award
brought together four high-profile journalists,
activists and media experts. They included
Amie Joof, Executive Director of the Senegal-based
Inter-African Network for Women, Media,
Gender and Development (FAMEDEV), Diran
Onifade, journalist and manager with the
Nigerian Television Authority and President
of the African Federation of Science Journalists,
Madeleine Mukamabano, media consultant and
former presenter of 'Le Débat Africain'
on Radio France International and Somali-born
Omar Faruk, President of the Federation
of African Journalists.
