UNEP: Four Decades of Development

Havana, Feb 1. – The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which is in charge of coordinating the global response to environmental challenges that threaten the planet, was launched four decades ago in Kenya.

An editorial by UNEP Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director Achim Steiner sent to Prensa Latina highlights the first actions and scientific contributions from the program, as well as to negotiations of international treaties to tackle the emerging environmental crisis.

Currently, this UN body continues presenting scientific information and calling for negotiations of treaties, as it occurred a few months ago when the governments all around the world met to step up the plans to devise a global agreement related to mercury.

The UNEP also worked on agreements related to renewable energy, forest projects and the elimination of lead in fuels used for transportation.

In the 1980s, the UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has become the main risk assessment mechanism and the most important benchmark for governments on the trends and possible impacts of climate change.

The UNEP emerged as a result of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972 and its headquarters is in the Gigiri neighborhood in Nairobi, Kenya, but only time will say if June 2012 will take its evolutionary process to its highest expression, the document notes.(Prensa Latina)