United Nations Environment Programme

History

UN Environment headquarters were established in Nairobi, Kenya, in the late 1970s with a staff of 300, 100 of them professionals in a variety of fields and with a five‐year fund of more than $100 million. At the time, $40 million were pledged by the United States and the rest by 50 other nations.

Executive Director

UN Environment's current Executive Director Erik Solheim succeeded the previous director Achim Steiner in 2016.

The position was held for 17 years (1975–1992) by Dr. Mostafa Kamal Tolba, who was instrumental in bringing environmental considerations to the forefront of global thinking and action. Under his leadership, UN Environment's most widely acclaimed success—the historic 1987 agreement to protect the ozone layer—the Montreal Protocol was negotiated.

During December 1972, the UN General Assembly unanimously elected Maurice Strong to head UN Environment. Also Secretary General of both the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which launched the world environment movement, and the 1992 Earth Summit, Strong has played a critical role is globalizing the environmental movement.

Structure

UN Environment's structure includes seven substantive Divisions:

Activities

UN Environment's main activities are related to:

Notable achievements

UN Environment has registered several successes, such as the 1987 Montreal Protocol for limiting emissions of gases blamed for thinning the planet's protective ozone layer, or the 2012 Minamata Convention, a treaty to limit toxic mercury.

UN Environment has sponsored the development of solar loan programs, with attractive return rates, to buffer the initial deployment costs and entice consumers to consider and purchase solar PV systems. The most famous example is the solar loan program sponsored by UN Environment helped 100,000 people finance solar power systems in India. Success in India's solar program has led to similar projects in other parts of the developing world like Tunisia, Morocco, Indonesia and Mexico.

UN Environment sponsors the Marshlands project in the Middle East . In 2001, UN Environment alerted the international community to the destruction of the Marshlands when it released satellite images showing that 90 percent of the Marshlands had already been lost. The UN Environment "support for Environmental Management of the Iraqi Marshland" commenced in August 2004, in order to manage the Marshland area in an environmentally sound manner.

In order to ensure full participation of global communities, UN Environmentworks in an inclusive fashion that brings on board different societal cohorts. UN Environmenthas a programme for young people known as Tunza. Within this program are other projects like the AEO for Youth.

Glaciers shrinking

Glaciers are shrinking at record rates and many could disappear within decades, the U.N. Environment Programme said on March 16, 2008. The scientists measuring the health of almost 30 glaciers around the world found that ice loss reached record levels in 2006. On average, the glaciers shrank by 4.9 feet in 2006, the most recent year for which data are available. The most severe loss was recorded at Norway's Breidalblikkbrea glacier, which shrank 10.2 feet in 2006. Glaciers lost an average of about a foot of ice a year between 1980 and 1999. But since the turn of the millennium the average loss has increased to about 20 inches.

Electric vehicles

At the fifth Magdeburg Environmental Forum held from 3–4 July 2008, in Magdeburg, Germany, UN Environment and car manufacturer Daimler called for the establishment of infrastructure for electric vehicles. At this international conference, 250 high-ranking representatives from ce, politics and non-government organizations discussed solutions for future road transportation under the motto of "Sustainable Mobility–the Post-2012 CO2 Agenda".

Reports

UN Environment publishes many reports, atlases and newsletters. For instance, the fifth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-5) assessment is a comprehensive report on environment, development and human well-being, providing analysis and information for policy makers and the concerned public. One of many points in the GEO-5 warns that we are living far beyond our means. It notes that the human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available.

In June 2010, a report from UN Environment declared that a global shift towards a vegan diet was needed to save the world from hunger, fuel shortages and climate change.

International years

(International) Patron of the Year of the Dolphin was H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco, with Special Ambassador to the cause being Nick Carter, of the Backstreet Boys.

(See international observance and list of environmental dates.)

Reform

Following the publication of Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February 2007, a "Paris Call for Action" read out by French President Jacques Chirac and supported by 46 countries, called for the United Nations Environment Programme to be replaced by a new and more powerful "United Nations Environment Organization (UNEO)", also called Global Environment Organisation now supported by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to be modelled on the World Health Organization. The 46 countries included the European Union nations, but notably did not include the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China, the top four emitters of greenhouse gases.

In December 2012, following the Rio+20 Summit, a decision by the General Assembly of the United Nations to 'strengthen and upgrade' the UN Environment Programme (UN Environment) and establish universal membership of its governing body was confirmed.