United Nations Environment Programme
150px
Org type	Programme
Acronyms	UNEP
Head	Achim Steiner
Status	Active
Established	1972
Headquarters	Nairobi, Kenya
Website	www.unep.org

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is an international institution (a programme, rather than an agency of the UN) that coordinates United Nations environmental activities, assisting developing countries in implementing environmentally sound policies and practices. It was founded as a result of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972 and has its headquarters in the Gigiri neighborhood of Nairobi, Kenya. UNEP also has six regional offices and various country offices.

Its activities cover a wide range of issues regarding the atmosphere, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, environmental governance and green economy. It has played a significant role in developing international environmental conventions, promoting environmental science and information and illustrating the way those can be implemented in conjunction with policy, working on the development and implementation of policy with national governments, regional institutions in conjunction with environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). UNEP has also been active in funding and implementing environment related development projects.

UNEP has aided in the formulation of guidelines and treaties on issues such as the international trade in potentially harmful chemicals, transboundary air pollution, and contamination of international waterways.

The World Meteorological Organization and UNEP established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. UNEP is also one of several Implementing Agencies for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of the Montreal Protocol, and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group.^[1] The International Cyanide Management Code, a program of best practice for the chemical’s use at gold mining operations, was developed under UNEP’s aegis.

Executive Director[link]

UNEP's current Executive Director is Achim Steiner, who succeeded previous director Klaus Töpfer in 2006. Dr Töpfer served two consecutive terms, beginning in February 1998.

On 15 March 2006, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, nominated Achim Steiner, former Director General of the IUCN to the position of Executive Director. The UN General Assembly followed Annan's proposal and elected him.

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, UNEP'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 UNEP. 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.

#	Picture	Name (Birth–Death)	Nationality	Took office	Left office
1		Maurice Strong[2] (1929–)	Canada	1972	1975
2		Mostafa Kamal Tolba (1922–)	Egypt	1975	1992
3		Elizabeth Dowdeswell	Canada	1992	1998
4		Klaus Töpfer (1938–)	Germany	1998	2006
5		Achim Steiner (1961–)	Germany	2006	present

Structure[link]

UNEP's structure includes six substantive Divisions:

• Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA)
• Division of Environmental Policy Implementation (DEPI)
• Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE)
• Division of Regional Cooperation (DRC)
• Division of Environmental Law and Conventions (DELC)
• Division of Communications and Public Information (DCPI).

International years[link]

The year 2007 was declared (International) Year of the Dolphin by the United Nations and UNEP.

(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.^[3]

2010 was designated the International Year of Biodiversity and presented an opportunity to enhance knowledge of ecosystems and their services.

Currently(2011) they are celebrating the International Year of Forests and preparing for 2012, which has been designated the International Year for Sustainable Energy for All.

(See international observance and list of environmental dates.)

Reports[link]

UNEP publishes many reports, atlases and newsletters. For instance, the fourth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-4) 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-4 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. Humanity’s environmental demand, or ecological footprint, is 21.9 hectares per person while the Earth’s biological capacity is, on average, only 15.7 ha/person.

In June 2010, a report from UNEP declared that a global shift towards a vegan diet was needed to save the world from hunger, fuel shortages and climate change.^[4]

Reform[link]

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.^[5]

Main activities[link]

UNEP's main activities are related to ^[6]:

• climate change;
  • including the Territorial Approach to Climate Change (TACC);
• disasters and conflicts;
• ecosystem management;
• environmental governance;
• harmful substances; and
• resource efficiency.

Notable world projects[link]

UNEP 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 UNEP helping 100,000 people finance solar power systems in India.^[7] Success in India's solar program has led to similar projects in other parts of developing world like Tunisia, Morocco, Indonesia and Mexico.

UNEP sponsors the Marshlands project in Middle East that helps to protect the largest marshland in Middle East. In 2001, UNEP 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 UNEP "support for Environmental Management of the Iraqi Marshland" commenced in August 2004, in order to manage the Marshland area in an environmentally sound manner.^[8]

In order to ensure full participation of global communities, UNEP works in an inclusive fashion that brings on board different societal cohorts. UNEP has a vibrant programme for young people known as Tunza. Within this program are other projects like the AEO for Youth.^[9]

Glaciers shrinking[link]

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.^[10]

Electric vehicles[link]

At the fifth Magdeburg Environmental Forum held from 3–4 July 2008, in Magdeburg, Germany, UNEP and car manufacturer Daimler called for the establishment of infrastructure for electric vehicles. At this international conference, 250 high-ranking representatives from industry, science, politics and non-government organizations discussed solutions for future road transportation under the motto of "Sustainable Mobility–the Post-2012 CO2 Agenda".^[11]

See also[link]

Sustainable development portal

• 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership
• United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative
• Global warming
• International Renewable Energy Agency
• Melbourne Principles
• Miss Earth Foundation
• Timeline of environmental events
• UNEP GEO Data Portal
• UNEP/GRID-Arendal
• United Nations Billion Tree Campaign
• World Conservation Monitoring Centre
• 1Love

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• United Nations Environment Programme. "Natural Allies: UNEP and Civil Society." Nairobi: United Nations Foundation, 2004.
• Paul Berthoud, A Professional Life Narrative, 2008, worked with UNEP and offers testimony from the inside of the early years of the organization.

External links[link]

• United Nations Environment Programme
• UNEP Finance Initiative
• Frankfurt School – UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance
• United Nations Environment Programme - World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC)
• UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development
• UNEP/GRID-Europe
• UNEP GEO Data Portal
• Sindrom Kodok Pada Manusia (Indonesia Language)
• Netherlands Commission for Environmental Assessment
• UNEP Regional Seas Programme

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Achim Steiner with Ramanathan Thurairajoo, Youth Delegate, Republic of Singapore (left)

Achim Steiner (born 1961 in Brazil) is a German expert in environmental politics. From 2001 to 2006 he was Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). Since June 2006 he has been Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Acting on the nomination of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the UN General Assembly unanimously elected Steiner as the Executive Director of UNEP on 16 March 2006 for a four-year term, effective 15 June 2006. In this office he succeeded Klaus Töpfer. He became the fifth Executive Director in UNEP's history. From 1 March 2009 to 15 March 2011, Steiner was also Director-General of the UN Offices at Nairobi (UNON).

At its 83rd plenary meeting, on 22 April 2010, the General Assembly, on the proposal of the Secretary-General, re-elected Steiner as Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme for another four-year term of office beginning on 15 June 2010 and ending on 14 June 2014.

Steiner also chairs the UN's Environmental Management Group (EMG) which UNEP hosts and funds. The EMG is chaired by the UNEP Executive Director and a special focus over the past few years has been on climate change and a lower carbon footprint. In 2007, the Secretary-General and the Chief Executives Board decided to move the UN system towards climate neutrality.

The EMG facilitated the first ever inventory of emissions for 49 agencies, funds and programmes. From 2010 onwards it will coordinate the move towards a common approach on emission reductions backed by strategies and targets for each UN institution.

Steiner grew up in Brazil. He was educated in England at Dover College and later studied philosophy, political science and economics at the University of Oxford. He received a Master of Arts degree in Economics and regional planning from the University of London, specializing in development economics, regional planning, and international development and environment policy. He also was a visiting scientist at German Development Institute in Berlin and at Harvard Business School. After leaving university, Steiner worked for several local environmental organisations before he worked for IUCN in Washington, D.C. and Asia. As a Senior Policy Adviser of the IUCN Global Policy Unit in Washington D.C., he spearheaded the development of new partnerships between the environmental community and the World Bank and United Nations system. In South-East Asia, he worked on a programme for sustainable management of Mekong River watersheds and community-based natural resources management. In 1998 he became Secretary-General of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) in Cape Town, South Africa. In that capacity, he managed a global programme of work to bring together the public sector, civil society, and the private sector in a global policy process on dams and development. In 2001 he returned to IUCN as Director-General, where he was responsible for managing and overseeing 1,000 staff stationed in 42 countries.

Steiner is well known for speaking on climate change and the green economy. UNEP is a leading proponent of the Green Economy Initiative (GEI) designed to assist governments in "greening" their economies by reshaping and refocusing policies and investments towards a range of sectors. These include clean technologies, renewable energies, water services, green transportation, waste management, green buildings and sustainable agriculture and forest management.

UNEP is also driving cutting-edge work in the field of natural capital. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study is an international initiative to draw attention to the global economic benefits of biodiversity and to highlight the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation.

Steiner also serves on a number of advisory boards, including the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) and the Environmental Advisory Council (ENVAC) of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

External links[link]

• Profile at UNEP website

This article incorporates information from the revision as of 1 June 2006 of the equivalent article on the German Wikipedia.

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