Why we need a world environment organisation

There is an urgent need for an environmental organisation within the UN system with real political clout
Stefania Prestigiacomo and John Njoroge Michuki
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 October 2009 17.17 GMT
Global environmental crises, from vanishing biodiversity and degrading forests to collapsing fish stocks and climate change, will not be solved without some tough thinking about international governance.
The world's response to these unfolding challenges has become a bewildering array of institutions, agreements and treaties that is in urgent need of reform.
That urgency has been given momentum by Chancellor Merkel of Germany and President Sarkozy of France. In a letter to the UN secretary general they emphasised that we must overhaul environmental governance and use Copenhagen climate talks in December to progress the creation of a world environmental organisation. Other world leaders adopted a similar tone, albeit in the corridors, at the recent UN summit on climate change and at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh.
Many minsters of environment have known for some time that solving environmental challenges and seizing opportunities will prove impossible without political clout and effective institutions.
International organisations charged with addressing the sustainable development have a welter of mandates – but all too often their hands are tied by a lack of sufficient funding or authority to deliver on them. The UN Environment Programme (Unep), which is mandated as the global authority for the environment, has one of the lowest annual budgets in the UN system – less than the price of a new Boeing 737. A lot of the funding that is available for the environment is also often channelled through facilities and funds that are disconnected from the very agency requested to set the global environmental agenda.
The problem is made worse by the fact that most of the hundreds of treaties meant to solve global environmental concerns have separate secretariats, which makes cooperation among the collection of bodies difficult, to put it mildly.
It is also a drain on scarce funds – a recent independent study has estimated the costs of separate secretariats are four times more compared with organisations that have all their related treaties under one roof. Resources could be better used to address the challenges.
For developing economies with scarce human and financial capacity, it is a particular challenge in terms of costs but also the sheer complexity and time-consuming nature of the current landscape. Over the period 1992-2007 for example, there were over 540 meetings linked to 18 international environmental treaties. These meetings generated more than 5,000 decisions, upon which countries are required to act.
There is an urgent need for an environmental organisation within the UN system with real influence that can stand side by side with strong organisations such as the World Trade Organisation and World Heath Organisation.
History has proven that strong international institutions are the precondition for building any successful international cooperation. The global financial crisis and the collaboration through the G20 and the International Monetary Fund are recent examples. A planet of six billion people, which will be nine billion by 2050, requires governments to plan for tomorrow, otherwise tomorrow will plan itself.
If that planning is to be serious about solving persistent, systemic and emerging environmental crises, and if governments now accept that a low-carbon, highly resource efficient economy is the only way for the world to survive, let alone thrive in the 21st century, then strengthening the international environmental governance system must be part of the package of enlightened reforms under worldwide debate.
• Stefania Prestigiacomo is the minister for environment, land and sea for Italy and John Njoroge Michuki is the minister for environment and mineral resources for Kenya, and they co-chair the Unep Consultative Group of Ministers or High-Level Representatives on International Environmental Governance.