The Rio+20
Summit reneged on an opportunity to bring environmental protection to centre stage of
global policy. One of the items on the Rio +20 summit was a proposal to turn
the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) into a fully fledged agency of
the UN. However, when the issue came up for discussion, the world once again
shied away from taking a firm stand but instead chose the compromise route of
dealing with funding issues currently bedevilling the premier global environmental
body.
Observers
say the current fragmented nature of environmental governance is one of the
reasons why environmental policy has failed to claim its rightful place at the
dinner table of global policy. While its sister bodies such as the World Health
Organisation, the World Trade Organisation, are sitting comfortably at the
dinner table guiding global policy as it relates to health and trade
respectively, UNEP is suffering an identity with its offshoots such CBD, IPCC,
UNFCC, among others claiming a share in the global environmental policy.
A cocktail
of actors in global environmental policy arena, have left the field with too
many actors but with no meaningful results. None of them has the necessary
clout to influence global environmental policy in the way WHO and WTO have done
in their respective fields.
For instance
WHO policy guidelines to a large extent inform ministry of health policies
across the globe. WTOs General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) forms the
bedrock of most international trade agreements. However, international
environmental policy is still treated as a gentleman’s club where the influence
of UNEP and its off shots are limited to an advisory role.
UNEP was
formed 40 years ago to champion the global environmental policy. But as years
went by with increasing complexity of environmental problems, many more small
environmental bodies were formed. Today we have a whole host of international
bodies each claiming space in the crowded arena of global environmental policy.
Currently there are close to 500 multi-lateral agreements on environment which
would require a strong steward. Unfortunately this does not appear to be a
priority for world leaders.
While some
critics point to the in efficiency of UNEP to tackle some of the World’s
challenging environmental problems as some of the reasons they are reluctant to
grant the organisation a full status as an agency of the UN, denying it power
simply worsens the situation. At the current trend of events various
environmental agreements will continue to be violated with reckless abandon. It
also demonstrates the lop-sided nature of international agreements.
International environmental are developed nations especially the United States
and emerging economies such as Brazil, China, and India, have been reluctant to
show commitment. This partly due to lack of clear leadership on global
environmental policy.
As
full-fledged UN agency, UNEP would assume the commanding role in driving global
environment policy that clearly lacks a leader. Integrating activities of other
environmental bodies into UNEPprogrammes, the body would be able to harness the
fragmented activities into coherent programmes. As the summit was called with
so much fanfare to chart the next decade of environment, it left us with no
real leader for global environmental policy.