United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

• IDENTIFICATION: International body created to coordinate worldwide environmental activities
• DATE: Established in December 1972

The United Nations Environment Programme, the designated authority of the United Nations in regional and global environmental issues, monitors the status of the environment around the world and brings environmental concerns to the attention of the world’s governments so that they may take action.

Creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) resulted from the wave of concern that arose during the 1960s about all forms of pollution. UNEP was established by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1972, several months after the UN Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, Sweden. Delegates attending that conference from 113 countries heard convincing evidence that expanding pollution was threatening the quality of human life. The delegates received reports from regional committees situated in every corner of the globe. In addition, an overall report, written by environmentalists Barbara Ward and René Dubos and based on the observations of prominent scientists and cultural experts in Europe, North America, South America, and Asia, was presented at the conference. The assessments, while not representing circumstances as threatening to humanity’s very existence, emphasized the need for humankind to take immediate remedial action to preserve an acceptable quality of life. The Ward-Dubos report, later published as Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet (1972), raised issues relating to water and air pollution (especially acid rain), dwindling rainforests, and complex problems arising from urban drift.

It was clear that the world needed an agency that would coordinate and monitor the environmental information produced by existing organizations. Such an agency could identify trouble spots and suggest corrective measures before major environmental disasters occurred. Delegates to the conference from developing nations, fearing economic consequences, were not enthusiastic about tackling environmental issues. Nonetheless, the majority of delegates voted to recommend to the UN General Assembly that it create UNEP. In December 1972, the General Assembly approved the recommendation and established UNEP’s operations in Nairobi, Kenya. It was the first major undertaking of the United Nations to be based in an African country.

UNEP was set up with a fifty-eight-nation governing council responsible for determining the program’s priorities and approving its budget. Maurice Strong, the North American businessman who had served as secretary general of the Stockholm conference, was appointed UNEP’s first director. Succeeding executive directors have included Egyptian microbiologist and former government minister Mostafa Tolba, former Canadian assistant deputy minister of environment Elizabeth Dowdeswell, German politician and environmental politics expert Klaus Topfer, and German environmental politics expert Achim Steiner.

Nearly three years after its establishment, UNEP began to implement Earthwatch, its mechanism for collecting and exchanging information on environmental issues. In 1975, UNEP established the Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS), an Earthwatch system for collecting, collating, and dispensing environmental data received from hundreds of UN-associated agencies around the world. GEMS urges governments to expand their monitoring activities and recommends to UNEP, through its Environmental Fund, which international conservation strategies should receive financial support. UNEP subsequently placed hundreds of monitoring stations around the world to record information on water quality in rivers, lakes, and oceans. Air-quality measuring systems were also constructed. By 1981, data on air and water quality were coming to GEMS from most large urban areas, including twenty cities in developing countries. GEMS also assists with the accumulation of information relating to food contaminants and toxic substances affecting marine life.

Further Evolution

In 1976, UNEP expanded the Earthwatch program with the addition of the International Register of Potentially Toxic Chemicals (IRPTC), which facilitates the distribution of information on chemicals, their effects, and the policies of the world’s governments regarding their use and trade. In 1977, another Earthwatch program was added, the International Referral System for Sources of Environmental Information, known as Infoterra. This decentralized information system links thousands of environmental information sources within the world’s governments, research institutions, universities, UN agencies, and nongovernmental agencies.

UNEP teamed with the World Meteorological Organization in 1988 to establish the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). A cooperative effort that brings together the world’s national governments and its scientific community, the IPCC assesses the mass of scientific data and policy alternatives about global climate change.

In 1990, GEMS, with the approval of UNEP, began a new Earthwatch program, the Global Resource Information Database (GRID). GRID received support from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the development of the necessary software. In addition, International Business Machines (IBM) contributed $6.5 million in computer equipment. As required by UNEP, control of the database was situated in Nairobi, but its most important computer centers were in Switzerland and the United States. The primary purpose of GRID was to provide technological support for the responsibilities imposed by UNEP on GEMS. GRID, through GEMS, greatly increased the efficiency of UNEP’s operations.

In the spring of 2000, in anticipation of the Millennium Summit later that year, UNEP convened the first Global Ministerial Environment Forum in Malmö, Sweden. A primary purpose of the forum was to convey to the attendees of the upcoming summit that depletion of the environment and natural resources was advancing at an alarming rate, and that progress in sustainable development was lagging dangerously far behind the commitments that governments had made to sustainability. The Millennium Development Goals, which arose out of the subsequent summit, included environmental sustainability as an objective in itself and recognized such sustainability as fundamental for the realization of all the other goals.

Several major global treaties regarding the environment have been negotiated under the auspices of UNEP. Among these are the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes, the 1998 Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade—a treaty regarding the import of banned and severely restricted hazardous chemicals, particularly into developing countries—and the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

Effectiveness

Initially, UNEP’s overall effectiveness did not prove to be all that its sponsors had hoped. Problems existed with its Nairobi location, where frequent power failures and a lack of technical expertise caused serious disruptions. The program also found it difficult to convince developing countries to provide information and to take seriously the need for conservation of resources when those nations wanted to focus their limited financial resources on other, more immediate matters. The leaders of the developing countries showed little interest in environmental issues and frequently failed to cooperate with GEMS or any other UNEP agency. In general, Southern Hemisphere countries were slow to collect environmental information and slower still to file reports with UNEP. Most of the information UNEP collected and disseminated came from developed countries.

As governments, the public, and the United Nations itself became increasingly aware of environmental issues, and as nongovernmental organizations devoted to environmental issues mushroomed in developing nations, UNEP grew better able to gather and provide data of a global nature. UNEP has also facilitated partnerships between developing and developed nations to improve the participation of developing nations. During the 1990s, for example, the United States and Ireland partnered with countries in the Southern Africa subregion to establish and provide training in support of a regional Infoterra network. Interconnections among environmental issues and a greater understanding of the relationship between environment and development have made UNEP’s ability to collate and share environmental data increasingly valuable. The advent of environmental issues with a global scope, notably climate change, has further reinforced UNEP’s importance. For example, the Glasgow Climate Pact, adopted in 2021, includes targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

In the 2020s, UNEP expanded its role in climate data transparency, launching digital platforms that allow real-time emissions tracking and satellite-based monitoring of deforestation and methane leaks. It has also supported the development of national adaptation plans through its Climate Promise initiative. At the 2024 session of the UN Environment Assembly, member states reaffirmed UNEP’s mandate to lead coordinated global action on plastic pollution and climate resilience, which signaled its influence has shifted from primarily data coordination to policy guidance and implementation support.

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