10th extraordinary session of the UNEP/Global Ministerial
Forum’s Governing Council

From 20-22 February 2008, Henri-Luc Thibault participated in the work of the tenth extraordinary meeting of the UNEP/Global Ministerial Forum’s Governing Council, which convened in Monaco. In the course of the session Achim Steiner, the new Executive Director, presented amongst others UNEP’s Medium-Term Strategy (MTS), focusing on climate change, disaster and conflict prevention, management of hazardous waste and harmful substances, international environmental governance, the ecosystemic approach and the efficient management of natural resources. The 2010-2013 strategy has emerged from internal brain-storming in working groups involving the secretariats of the various international conventions, and aims at making UNEP a results-focused organisation.

The Executive Director also presented UNEP’s 2007 Activity Report, which provides a full overview of the institution’s activities and the new partnerships which have been forged. He also endeavoured to show how the recommendations from previous Governing Councils have been implemented, particularly the ones which emerged from the 2002 Cartagena session focused on rendering UNEP more effective and efficient. Finally, he welcomed the increase in UNEP’s budgetary resources now approaching 70 million $ per year, a net increase which reflects the renewed interest of UNEP’s partners in its work.

The ministerial debates which focused on two topics- mobilising finance to meet the climate change challenge and boosting international environmental governance- were lively and well-attended. They underscored in particular how difficult it is to achieve fair distribution of the funds already available- for the private sector in particular- for combating climate change, the current preference being to channel them first and foremost into emission limitation action in emerging countries. Thus, despite several initiatives, the financing of adaptation measures in developing countries remains an issue. Various potential avenues were put forward for better distributing resources, in particular the need for stabilised national regulatory frameworks, an international architecture for quota exchange and a price per tonne of carbon emitted. The discussion on improving international environmental governance confirmed the diversity of positions, although certain points of consensus are starting to emerge, in particular the importance of defining an architecture on the basis of a clear remit, retaining the autonomy of existing agreements, and working on a step by step basis whilst further building up UNEP’s activity.

 

 

Back to the news

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As part of a continuous improvement approach of its website, Plan Bleu aims to meet visitors expectations, by conducting a Satisfaction Survey available online:

http://www.planbleu.org/planBleu/enquete_uk.html

Thank you for giving us few minutes to answer this survey.

Your feed-back and comments will be more than welcome!