Dr. Arvind Kumar*
The United Nations Environment Assembly is the world’s highest-level decision-making body for matters related to the environment. It sets priorities for global environmental policies and international environmental law. Understanding these challenges and preserving and rehabilitating our environment is at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The natural world – the very foundation of our societies and economies – is buckling under the weight of three intertwined environmental crises: climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. These unfolding catastrophes are getting worse by the day and jeopardizing decades of hard-won development gains. In just the last few months, countries from India to Vanuatu have been blanketed in record heat, lashed by cyclones and floodwaters. Left unchecked, this extreme weather will combine with other long-percolating environmental problems, like air pollution and deforestation, to impact economic growth. Considering the same the overall theme of UNEA-6 is effective, inclusive and sustainable multilateral actions to tackle climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution which will take place in Nairobi, Kenya from 26th February to 1st March 2024.
Member States and stakeholders will come together at UNEA-6 to discuss how to advance the Decade of Action with a focus on addressing the interlinkages of the three planetary environmental crises. A series of leadership and multi-stakeholder dialogues, official side events and associated events are expected to lay the grounds for strengthened future global and regional coordinated efforts by the United Nations, Member States and partners to deliver high-impact planetary action. A core mandate of UNEP is to keep the world environment situation under review and strengthen the interface between science and policymaking across the sustainable development agenda. Indeed, UNEP has played a significant role in enhancing the use of scientific evidence in decision making relating to the environment.
The scientific products UNEP has produced throughout its history have made the case for action clear and the focus is now increasingly on transforming the science into actionable tasks and deploying it with a renewed Science-Policy Interface. The planetary situation looks gloomy, but it is still possible to create positive change together. With 60% of the world’s population, 4.3 billion people and more than 50% of world’s consumption, the Asia-Pacific region must take a leading role in planetary green transformation. The root of the planetary crisis is found in the unsustainable way in which the global economy operates. This is a linear model, where resources are extracted from nature on a massive scale and turned into products that are often quickly consumed, after which they become waste. This adds immense pressure on the planet’s limited resources. It increases greenhouse emissions and maximizes waste and pollution. This is why it is critical to quickly transition to a green, circular economy, which minimizes the environmental impact of economic activities and ‘closes the loop’ of the value chain, so almost nothing goes to waste.
From Fragmentation to Coordination and Cooperation
This will be the first time an agenda item on cooperation with Multilateral Environment Agreements is included on the agenda of UNEA. Many of the governing bodies of MEAs have adopted decisions that call for strengthening cooperation and collaboration with other international bodies, including UNEP. It is therefore important that UNEA-6 consider reciprocating and complimenting these decisions by providing concrete guidance to UNEP to promote common action. The dialogue is expected to facilitate elaboration on the type of action governments could take for effective implementation through strengthened cooperation between UNEA, UNEP and the MEAs to address the environmental challenges, including by effective utilization of means of implementation. Backed by strong science, political resolve and engagement with society, the Assembly will be an opportunity for world governments, civil society groups, the scientific community and the private sector to shape the global environmental policy.
We have to draft resolutions which seek to foster States, international organizations, and business enterprises to ramp up and accelerate their endeavour to ensure a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment for all. Let us show the world that non state actors too can gather, to collectively address the triple planetary crisis, namely climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. As such, natural calamities, due to climate change, are increasing in intensity, frequency, duration, and severity, biodiversity is declining, and the air pollution is the main cause of disease and premature death worldwide.
Way Ahead
Governments are not the sole actors that need to take action, multilateral collaboration is required. We have to stress that the business sector plays an essential role in human rights. However, there is a lack of awareness, which may ineluctably trigger inadequate responses because companies do not know how to handle this right. In this regard civil society, organizations, and human and environmental rights experts can support businesses in providing clear guidance on the scope of companies’ responsibility for their footprint. There is a crucial need to allocate resources to rehabilitate and restore degraded areas, halt pollution, and implement instruments to protect the environment for economic and business activities. To sum up, this UNEA6 will likely have a prominent impact in the future to enhance the actions taken to address the crises we are living in be it pollution, climate change or biodiversity loss. the actions that support a people-centered approach, and will thereby contribute to addressing the triple planetary crisis. States, international organizations, and businesses are strongly encouraged to scale up their actions. To finish, multilateral environmental agreements will reinforce the fulfilment of these actions.
*Editor, Focus Global Reporter
