What kind of environment do we desire and which organization can take international environmental action? Many questions remain unanswered at the fiftieth year of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). It was created at the United Nations Conference on Human Environment, Stockholm, in June 1972. Tomorrow’s UN Environment Assembly will take place at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi. It will allow us to reflect on the past 50 years and decide which UNEP we want.
From the beginning, the idea revolved around protecting the environment and reducing pollution to prevent depletion of nonrenewable resources. This would preserve the natural balance and ensure human life. Sustainable development was not a new concept. It was rooted in the Stockholm spirit. Although there were many unrealistic slogans and lofty aspirations at the Stockholm conference, UNEP was established to provide the institutional framework for international environmental action. This framework was embodied through treaties and agreements that set standards and restrictions and goals. If countries had kept to their promises in seventies and eighties, it would not have been necessary to set new goals for the Earth Summit on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992. Failure did not only result in failure to deliver environmental promises; it also affected development commitments.
In the case of the rich, the delay in ending unrestrained growth driven by greed and the desire of inflating numerical growth figures, rather than real progress and quality, in the decades following Stockholm, led to an increase of pollution rates, carbon emission, and waste of resources. The problem in poor countries is more complicated. This is because of corruption and poor governance, as well as the failures of rich countries to keep their promises. In 1970, the United Nations resolved that 0.7 percent of GDP would be provided to poor countries. This was two years before Stockholm. This pledge was not kept after 50 years. It led to slow implementation of critical infrastructure work, including electricity plants and grids, fresh water treatment and networks, education and health services, and productive investments that create new jobs. This failure to fulfill commitments has led the environment to be in constant poverty. Extreme poverty and extreme wealth are the two greatest enemies of the environment.
Instead of implementing previous promises, countries decided in 2000 that they would set new millennium developmental goals. They were to be accomplished in 2015, with other goals to be introduced under a flashy title of Sustainable Development Goals. The implementation date was extended to 2030.
It is worth establishing clear rules linking development and environment. This was done at Rio de Janeiro’s 1992 Earth Summit. 50 years after the United Nations Environment Program was established to defend the global environment, many still use the slogan Sustainable Development to put development above the environment and to consider environmental protection to be an obstacle to human progress. This is fundamentally contrary to sustainable development. It is impossible for development programs to be sustained if irreparable environmental damage and losses are not addressed.
Due to corona virus measures, the UNEP General Assembly’s upcoming meeting will be somewhat subdued. This is not how UNEP wanted to celebrate its fiftieth year. The meeting’s main theme will be Strengthening Actions for Nature to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals. It focuses primarily on protecting and reconfiguring nature to make them a powerful tool of development. UNEP is also included to help with the achievement the Sustainable Development Goals’ environmental component.
Perhaps UNEP’s most significant achievement over the past 50 years was putting the environment on the popular and governmental agendas. It also developed a legal framework through numerous international agreements and treats, covering everything from pollution and waste to climate change, seas, desertification, and biodiversity. Given the many tasks and organs it had to perform, it was necessary for UNEP to improve its organizational structure and redefine its goals. This has often led UNEP to lose its original identity and purpose dtre.
UNEP was created in 1972 as an international agency. It is managed by a Board of Governors of 56 nations. A secretariat is responsible for its administration. An Executive Director, elected by the General Assembly based on a recommendation by the UN Secretary General after consultations with member countries, heads the secretariat. This is in contrast to the Specialized Organizations (which are independent from the UN Secretariat) and are directly governed through the Member States who elect their top executive.
Between 1972 and 1974, UNEP’s founder Maurice Strong and Mustafa Kamal Tolba was in office. His term lasted 18-years and ended in 1992. UNEP was able to lead international environmental work. Strong and Tolba did not find it a problem that the UN Secretary General proposed the candidate for the Executive Director position. They considered that the UN General Assembly was their ultimate boss, which elected them together with UNEPs Governing Council. Tolba insisted that UNEPs mandate was appropriate as a coordinating body for UN system environmental work. UNEPs interference in the work of other international organizations and programs responsible for development, agriculture, meteorology, education, and health, would be rejected if it were an independent body. Tolba exercised his full authority as chairman of the Environment Coordination Board. This Board is made up of international agencies dealing with environmental issues.
With Tolbas’ departure in 1992, the situation began to shift. After the Rio Environment and Development summit, international development agencies began to take UNEPs plates. The other was that the new Executive director, who came from Canada’s administrative ranks, acted more as an employee at the UN Secretariat rather than the head a UN international body elected by members of the UN General Assembly. The two executive directors who succeeded tried to restore UNEPs independence and transform it into an independent global organization that is more concerned with environmental issues than UN organs. In 2014, UN General Assembly approved UNEPs 56-state Governing Committee to be replaced by the United Nations Environment Assembly. This included all UN member states. The UNEP management’s policies soon after the change were made backfired. They transformed UNEP’s image into a kind of department within the UN Secretariat instead of increasing its independence. This was made possible by the 2016 removal of UNEP’s name in favor of UN Environment, a hybrid term that robbed UNEP its identity and erased its memory. Recent attempts to correct this terrible error were not enough.
To galvanize international environmental action, we need to reclaim Maurice Strong’s dedication, grace, and leadership style. This is the only way UNEP can be protected from the dominance of international development and financing agencies, who control the money and prevent it being turned into a department at the United Nations Secretariat in New York.
