The United Nations and the Environment: Some Personal Reflections

1 Introduction

The year 2022 is rich in reflection and analysis about 50 years of international environmental diplomacy and governance. Academics, politicians, diplomats and civil society practitioners are bringing their perspectives from myriad milestone meetings and conferences on a journey that mobilized public awareness in the early 1970’s. Today it is hard to imagine a global landscape devoid of conversation, negotiation and action about the environment although the breadth and depth of definition has certainly evolved.

This has led me to consider what I was thinking at certain moments in time. I do not recall when we did not have a Department of Environment in Canada. I always assumed that there was an international dimension to the scientific understanding and problem solving of environmental issues. Through the leadership of people like Maurice Strong, Jim MacNeil and so many others I knew intuitively that Canada had a place on the world stage.

I was not fortunate enough to attend the ground-breaking first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) 1 hosted by the Swedish Government during 5-16 June 1972. It was foundational to national and bilateral work in which I later became involved, first around the restoration and protection of the Great Lakes and later when climate change became all consuming. Stockholm energized the world, presenting an intellectual and conceptual framework that enlarged the agenda beyond environmental pollution and conservation and opened the door to non-state actors to play their appropriate roles. So, these are some selected notes and thoughts from my journey.

2 The United Nations

It was in the early nineties that I began to reflect on the myths and misunderstandings of the UN. I observed that the UN has a moral authority to safeguard enduring peace. What has evolved is a much more expansive definition of peace beyond freedom from war to human security. However, that mission as a lobby for the future and the poor could often be challenged by the stubborn obstacle of national sovereignty.

Logically it would appear that a major asset of the UN is its universality. But, and it is a very big but, universality does not mean that everyone is equal. The countries of the OECD, those with economies in transition, and those developing or just surviving, have very different needs and objectives and very different degrees of influence. There are those who believe that the UN should focus on the normative role, setting standards - but the tricky question of how to ensure compliance remains unanswered. There are those who believe the UN should remain the focus of world-wide cooperation and consensus-seeking, but when it comes to developing effective ways for resolving disputes or preventing conflict, the track record is less clear.

The United Nations is an instrument through which we define the norms of civilized relations among states. Building consensus is how we do that. Consensus-seeking is admirable, but all too often it results in negotiations to the lowest, rather than to the highest common denominator. Ultimately with a lack of agreement on the objectives, and a practice of seeking consensus, it is very easy to paralyze any process.

The UN is frequently called a system, but in reality, it is the collective will of member states. Neither is it a coherent system. Conflicting structures of governance among UN agencies intensify institutional fragmentation and duplication. The multiplicity of bodies dealing with similar issues leads to overlap, ambiguity in mandates, and spreading resources too thinly.

The UN has a significant power - the power to convene. but it must be more than a “permanent diplomatic market for the exchange of information and views”. International conferences as an instrument for policy development are great at raising awareness, but it is worth asking whether the rhetoric has been translated into action effectively? There is a general lack of accountability and enforcement mechanisms.

Furthermore, the UN must have the necessary resources to do the job. If we do not equip and empower the organization to succeed, it can only slip into irrelevance, failing silently. An overburdened and underfunded UN can only be slow to react and hampered in its decision-making. A predictable and adequate funding base is essential.

At the end of the last century the business of the UN was still largely perceived as being intergovernmental, governed by diplomacy and bureaucracy and insulated from the public eye. Decades later we have come to understand that in order to develop social consensus and credibility in a time of public fatigue the UN needs the public force of ideas to trigger innovation and ultimately strengthen the national capacity to act. While states and governments would remain primary actors, they should not bear the entire burden. The opening phrase in the UN Charter - We the Peoples 2 - was deliberate. The UN is everybody’s business.

3 The UN and Climate Change

It was the issue of climate change that introduced me to the United Nations and international decision-making. As Canada’s Permanent Representative to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) I saw the indispensable role of a specialized agency with a focus on science and a recognition that understanding weather and climate required universal membership – a case study in interdependence.

In fact, the unprecedented General Assembly decision 3 that gave the mandate for the World Meteorology Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to create the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4 provided the world community the opportunity to learn together about the phenomenon of climate change. It didn’t matter whether a country was represented by a specialist in every discipline or by one person and a typewriter. It was a time of intense learning, science and research, the development of a new vocabulary and compelling communication and the building of a constituency and common cause for action. I have vivid memories of the moment in time when at an IPCC meeting in the wee small hours of the morning, negotiators realized that it was now time to move to formal treaty negotiations.

The story of climate change negotiations would fill an entire book. We were, and continue to be, in uncharted territory with such a perverse public policy challenge. Simply put, we are contemplating the decarbonization of our lives. It is a matter of unprecedented scope and complexity touching on issues as varied as economic growth and development, energy and trade, peace and security as well as the environment. It requires decision-making in the face of uncertainty, an understanding of intergenerational and global impact and raises profound questions of equity. It quickly became clear that earlier success stories of international approaches to environmental treaty-making would provide some lessons, but be insufficient. The recent COP26 5 brought evidence of better science and advanced technologies, greater precision about mitigation and adaptation strategies and more comprehensive engagement of all sectors. Yet questions remain. Are we running out of time? Is there a real sense of urgency? Were the steps pledged bold and ambitious enough to move beyond good intentions? Do we really understand what drives attitudinal and behavioral change? Do we have adequate mechanisms for accountability?

4 Rio and Sustainable Development

My second glimpse of the strengths and weaknesses of the UN system was through the lens of the bold and audacious United Nations Earth Summit 6 in 1992. Building upon earlier work of the World Commission on Environment and Development 7 in 1987, world leaders were asked to embrace the concept of sustainable development that implied a new approach to economic development, one that provided fairness and opportunity for all of the world’s people without diminishing the world’s resources and without compromising the carrying capacity of the globe. It was the politics of hope – a concept so seductive. To deliver on such an intent an action plan, various specific treaties and institutional arrangements were negotiated. Nevertheless, within the next decade the promise of Rio would not be fully realized. To be charitable, sustainable development remained a ‘work in progress’. Sustainability was a deceptively simple concept but we quickly discovered that it had many challenges in implementation. It is intrinsically holistic and interdisciplinary. It embodies complexity. It makes value judgements about equity. It is very long-term in character, quite inconsistent with the timescales of most democratic governments. We found that the politics of ‘anticipate and prevent’ is much harder than the politics of ‘react and cure’. The scope of the challenges of alleviating poverty, of shaping globalization and of reversing environmental degradation are significant and we seemed to be merely tinkering in the margins. It was obvious that there was clearly a disconnect between the declaration we negotiated and what we actually delivered. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) 8 held in Johannesburg in 2002 was a test of the implementation of sustainable development and Rio’s legacy. The agenda attempted to cover so much – from human rights, peace and security to sanitation, from agricultural subsidies to education, from cities to mountain ecosystems. We discovered how messy and difficult integration of the economic, social and environmental elements of sustainability really is. Certainly, WSSD did not meet the expectations of many – those who continued to push governments further and faster and those who measured progress by the meeting of targets and schedules. Many considered it a missed opportunity.

But the story of the very positive reaffirmation of multilateralism needs to be told. One hundred and ninety countries came to the same table as a world community. The results of previous negotiations on financing at Monterey, on trade at Doha and various multilateral environmental agreements were not ignored or diminished. Rather they were examined anew in the context of an integrated sustainable development agenda.

WSSD also reinforced the observation that over the past decade governments have gradually made some space for non-state actors. Partnerships were announced every half hour in Johannesburg – genuine partnerships focused on the implementation of objectives governments had agreed to, partnerships with real resources and clearly identified and measurable results. The human and financial resources required to implement the sustainability agenda are much greater than what governments can provide. Achieving our common goals through partnership may well have been the real legacy of Johannesburg.

Consequently, the journey of sustainability continued with another effort to galvanize concerted action on the most egregious forms of poverty, hunger and disease, while ensuring environmental sustainability was developed – the eight Millennium Development Goals. By 2015 some progress was evident but collectively nations agreed that more rigorous target-setting and tracking was needed.

Showing a remarkable sense of urgency and determination, a third evolution of a global agenda was agreed. The ambitious 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 9 and a ‘to-do list’ of 17 interrelated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 specific targets gained broad acceptance as a framework for action. It is evident that while the academic community continues to clarify the intellectual underpinnings of the concept of sustainability, shared responsibility for action is being assumed by business, institutions and civil society as well as member states.

5 UN Environment Program

During the first 25 years of its life UNEP was preoccupied with providing information and creating awareness about the state of the environment and providing a forum for convening governments to find solutions to the problems identified. The hallmark of its success was the development of a regime of international environmental law. It was the midwife of conventions. For UNEP following Rio, a rethinking was essential.

We heard, and some had experienced first-hand, the immense exhilaration, the excitement of Rio and all that it promised. We had before us a frighteningly large agenda – Agenda 21. We had a totally new and ill-defined concept of sustainable development. Few organizations, UNEP included, had the expertise or experience of integrating the elements of economic prosperity, environmental stewardship and social inclusion. We had a new institution to work with, the Commission on Sustainable Development. The world community had negotiated new treaties on important issues of climate change, biodiversity and desertification. We had a new set of principles to guide us. And we were experiencing a moment in time that allowed political space for civil society.

The perception was that the political agenda and the environmental agenda were increasingly different. The agenda and the priorities of two-thirds of the world were significantly different from those of the developed world, particularly when past commitments remain unmet. Developing countries placed alleviation of poverty and provision of an adequate and safe supply of drinking water at the top of the list while the developed world concerns itself with creation of an international regime for the management of chemicals. The Biodiversity Convention was ‘owned’ by the developing world, while the Climate Change Convention was seen as the pride of the rich north. The developed world was perceived to be preoccupied with ensuring common environmental standards in a liberalized trade regime while developing countries wanted to assure themselves of market access.

And how UNEP did business certainly could not be the same. Rio’s legacy was the empowerment of civil society and an expansion of responsibility to many more constituencies. Now every agency, in the name of sustainable development, was competing for attention and scarce resources, sometimes with conflicting objectives.

It was my distinct privilege, as one of UNEP’s Executive Directors, to witness first hand some of the many stories of aspiration, challenge and success. In five short years following Rio, as evidenced in UNEP’s Annual Reports, the organization delivered a significant agenda and began to build the foundation for a different future.

UNEP broke new ground in dealing with environment and trade, environment and financial institutions which were never part of its traditional agenda. They broadened considerably the chemicals agenda to persistent organic pollutants and prior informed consent. They developed the first Global Environmental Outlook (GEO), 10 a new way of looking at state of the environment reporting and extended their reach, from developing environmental guidelines for the Olympics to catalyzing global environmental citizenship programs.

Particular focus was placed on the regions reaching local people, local problems, and local environment ministers who asked for help. The list of accomplishments included: the Lusaka agreement; sixty-one cleaner production centers around the world; Tierra America – a wonderful newspaper published in Latin America that has received numerous awards; the preliminary discussions in North America about lead and children; in West-Asia, rehabilitation following the Gulf war. And they did all of this in collaboration with sister organizations.

UNEP was also active in supporting the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements. They assumed responsibility for shepherding the creation of the secretariat for the biodiversity convention, prepared for the launch of the Global Biodiversity Assessment and promoted further consideration and inclusion of ozone-depleting substances in the Montreal Protocol. They developed a world atlas on desertification and a global plan of action on the protection of the marine environment from land-based sources of pollution. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) was created with UNEP as one of the three key founders. They designed sustainable cities programs with our fellow colleagues in Habitat.

Courtesy of assistance from the European Space Agency they developed Mercure, a communications system that would provide more predictable communications. UNEP was committed to delivering real results and developing a culture of accountability. As the organization sought additional financial resources, they also made changes in the management and development of human resources – working in multidisciplinary teams and undertaking performance appraisals. UNEP received from the Secretary General a new and strengthened mandate, developed the Nairobi declaration and supported the initiation of a high-level committee of ministers of environment and officials to assist in meeting the needs that they perceived within their own countries.

But these considerable successes were tempered by the knowledge that the real potential of the organization was not yet realized. There appeared to be a lack of urgency and no sustained momentum to secure and strengthen UNEP’s contribution to the global community.

It is worth commenting on two matters of unfinished business: the resolution of the continuing debate about international environmental governance and UNEP’s place therein and the development of the architecture of a modern architectural regime for that governance.

Over the past two decades there have been several occasions to reconnect with former and current Executive Directors of UNEP, diplomats and staff who have been part of the unfolding story of UNEP. In Glion Switzerland in 2009 and in Nairobi on the occasion of the 40^th anniversary 11 of UNEP we heard powerful analyses of a world in wobbly disequilibrium, an assessment that our performance on reversing environmental degradation was not yet good enough and that sustainable development remained a work in progress.

I recall frank conversations about global environmental governance 12 that left the anchor of our global environmental actions – UNEP – grossly underfunded, at times isolated, with its authority questioned and a broader system that exposed examples of fragmentation and policy incoherence.

Questions that emerged included the following

iii.

Is the objective of member states sustainable development or environmental protection? Do the majority of member states want an environmental organization that contributes environmental expertise to the broader achievement of sustainable development or are they expecting UNEP to encompass all elements of sustainable development?

Do the majority of member states want an organization that primarily sets norms and motivates policy development or are they prepared to empower the organization with the tools for monitoring and enforcing compliance?

Do the majority of member states see UNEP as a conscience for the global environment even when they pose potential challenges to national sovereignty?

Do the majority of member states want an organization that has universal membership with equality of voice and influence for North and South? Do they expect an organization not only with the power to convene, but a place where the political agenda for the environment is set?

Do member states recognize and want coherence in the system – are they prepared to tackle the disconnected web of sovereign environmental treaties, conventions and mechanisms? Do they have the collective will to seek policy coherence with other related fields such as trade, energy and technology?

Do member states see UNEP’s agenda primarily focused on global issues or primarily on local and regional problems?

Are member states prepared to share space with the public in developing social consensus, triggering innovation strengthening both international and national capacity to act?

Obviously answering these questions is not simple, but accountability to do so rests with member states. Complexity arises because nation states have different ways of thinking, different approaches to problem-solving, different criteria for success. Is it any wonder then that achieving agreement among almost 200 countries, each facing many of the same domestic considerations and circumstances, will be neither quick nor easy? These questions are fundamentally about power and power-sharing, about relationships. Consequently, the various negotiated declarations often lack transparency, express the lowest common denominator and are silent if not unrealistic in agreeing HOW the objectives will be met.

It is unrealistic to expect that UNEP can be all things to all people. It is part of a system. How it organizes itself must accommodate a multilayered system that is mutually reinforcing. The architecture of the governance regime includes the complex mechanisms, processes and institutions, framework of rules, established practices that guide decision-making. It’s driven by multilateral diplomacy defining who participates and how. The process of policy development generally involves three stages: agenda formulation – recognition of the problem, getting it on the public stage, and framing it for consideration and debate; negotiation and decision-making – agreeing commitments, policies and measures; implementation and further development.

By the early 1990s there were about 120 multilateral environmental agreements. 13 The nature of those agreements was in flux – moving beyond law strictly focused on the physical parameters of the problem to be regulated to consideration of the socio-economic dimension as well; negotiating legal instruments in circumstances of scientific uncertainty, demanding a dynamic regime of flexible protocols; the creation of new concepts such as ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ and ‘intergenerational equity’; the incorporation of facilitative and supportive measures complementary to the prohibitions of a punitive ‘command and control’ regime.

Financial mechanisms such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF) 14 were created and articles concerning the transfer of technology, grace periods, incentive-based approaches and dispute avoidance and resolution became common. Ad hoc subcommittees to ensure that scientific information is continually brought forward and specialized reporting mechanisms have now become enshrined in law, often consuming as much time to negotiate as the substance of the agreements themselves.

It became apparent that there was a risk of having a disconnected and fragmented web of treaties, conventions and mechanisms. At best this lack of cohesion would miss opportunities for synergy and complementarity; at worst there would be duplication and competition for scarce resources.

The opportunity for comprehensive analysis and creative thinking about new models, instruments and tools remained unexplored. The comparative advantages of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ law, non-binding regimes and codes of conduct and the contribution of industry and indigenous knowledge attracted insufficient attention. The interrelationship of environmental and socio-economic instruments and the use of the best elements of a rules-based system, such as a dispute settlement mechanism, could well become more common. And the challenge of balancing national sovereignty and the global commons will require consideration of ethics, trust and confidence.

Today the discussion continues. As I prepared to take up the position in Nairobi, I probably would have said that genuine transformation is what we need. As I left, I considered that such revolution was most unlikely. There was not the required trust among member states. There was a good deal of confusion and a certain hypocrisy in what governments said publicly and privately about what they wanted.

Academic research has continued in the intervening years. As an outside observer I note that, not surprisingly, decisions in the near term continued to be influenced by the politics of the day: the specific interests of sovereign states; the dictates of regional groupings; the linkages to other issues, relevant or not; the power plays of international organizations themselves; and even the leadership of dominant personalities.

6 The Challenge of Change

It would appear that governments seem more comfortable with pragmatic evolutionary rather than revolutionary change. It is relatively easier to focus on institutional adjustments, the need for increased resources, improving capacity building and strengthening transparency and participation, better coordination with multilateral environmental agreements and comforting statements about UNEP in Nairobi being at the core of any change. Perhaps one day visionary change will be possible.

In the interim the agenda is a demanding one. I have commented that UNEP can demonstrate unassailable competence in scientific assessment, monitoring and provision of information. It is on the basis of authoritative, high quality and unbiased information that UNEP will provide the fundamental evidence and intelligence to alert the world to emerging issues and report on the state of the environment to guide policy development and indicators to provide the basis for ensuring accountability and compliance in the implementation of existing treaties and agreements It will prove itself a worthwhile partner to others in the system.

UNEP can continue to stay the course in providing a forum for policy guidance, rulemaking and negotiation of the normative framework for an international environmental legal regime. UNEP has to remain the forum that has as a first priority the environment. It has to provide member states the political vitality, profile and voice in crucial debates with others engaged in delivering sustainable development. The normative role is UNEP’s comparative advantage.

Internally UNEP can become a learning organization, developing and using a broad range of tools, building on the power of networks, investigating models of regional approaches, addressing the brave new world of social media. It is not a mere observer to discussions about its future. But a strengthened and resilient UNEP requires a clear solution to the issue of adequate, stable and predictable financing. Member states in capitals and in Nairobi need to be UNEP’s champions in the deliberations on policy coherence and coordination.

And one final comment. Exposing the contradictions and incoherence in the system point to much more fundamental ethical issues of responsibility, justice and solidarity, respect and a rebalancing of power. There is a general widespread distrust of authority. There is a sense that those entrusted with the responsibility of governing are ignorant of, and even willfully blind to, the lived experiences of everyday people. Detachment from institutions— political, economic, or civic – is a real challenge that threatens to undermine a fragile global consensus. I remain optimistic that our common humanity is more important than our differences and that we can share the same world view.

7 Conclusion: What Next?

It is an understatement to point out that we live in a time of radical change. Today my thoughts are preoccupied by three crises occurring simultaneously. A global pandemic has turned the world upside down. The existential threat of climate change is becoming real. And we are in the midst of an unthinkable war in Ukraine. We are seeing the real impact of our global interdependence, the breakdown in a healthy relationship between environment and development, the fragility of our social, health and economic systems, and a fundamental shift in geopolitics. The stories of grief, loss and disruption are ever present, inequities have been exposed and many simply cannot see a path forward.

However, the fact of these complex and interconnected challenges must not be cause for defeatism but rather they must command hope and faith in the opportunity before us. Humanity can learn if it chooses to listen. The response to the global pandemic points to collaboration and reduction of partisanship among orders of government, the evidence of trust and confidence in science, the creativity of business and industry as they harness amazing technologies and find ways to scale up innovation, and always the compassion, caring and search for social justice among our citizens.

Not surprisingly there is an unmistakable hunger for some form of normalcy yet we will be coexisting with this virus for some time. The status-quo will not suffice. Rather than drift into a new normal, this is actually a moment of opportunity when we could design a better normal, a reset if you like. It is timely to ask the question: What does sustainability look like in a post-pandemic world? Will we think holistically and systemically? Sustainability is a framework that recognizes our interdependence and mutual vulnerability. If applied in a spirit of humility, optimism and humanity together we could save lives and livelihoods.

No country can isolate itself from these complex and wicked challenges. We are influenced by and influence each other. The UN remains a place where nations can exercise continued vigilance, create the conditions for resilience and demonstrate a collective will to live together in peace and security. It will take empathy, inclusive engagement and trust.