World's ministers back raft of measures to modernize UNEP

NAIROBI (Xinhua) - World's environment ministers have ended their week-long meeting in Nairobi by resolving to modernize UNEP into a strengthened and upgraded institution to better meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.

The ministers meeting for the first time under universal membership of 193 member states adopted a raft of other decisions relating to the way UNEP will operate and work as the global platform for environmental policy-making and action over the coming years and decades.

"Ministers responsible for the environment implemented the strengthening and upgrading of UNEP to an institution better equipped and resourced to serve the planet and its people to meet the ever growing challenges posed by ecosystem degradation to the growth of greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere while catalyzing transformational change to seize the equally fast growing opportunities for a sustainable development path change," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said in a statement received on Saturday.

The governments also decided to convene in October an intergovernmental diplomatic conference to formally adopt the Minamata Convention on Mercury that was agreed in January in Geneva under a UNEP-facilitated negotiation, again a further implementation of the Rio+20 outcome document.

The mercury treaty, aimed at reducing releases and emissions of a notorious health-hazardous heavy metal from source such as artisanal small-scale mining, medical equipment and power stations, will open for signature at the conference in Japan en route to ratification and coming into force.

The decision, by ministers of the environment meeting at the UNEP Governing Council, which ended in Nairobi late on Friday implemented the call by Heads of States and governments in the "Future We Want" forged at the close of Rio+20 last June.

The statement said the ministers also backed more predictable, stable and increased funding for UNEP from the UN Regular Budget by 2014, underlining increasing confidence in UNEP's ability and role to deliver the environmental dimension of sustainable development.

Governments called for the transformation of the existing Governing Council into a UN Environment Assembly of UNEP and to build stronger links between UNEP's science-based Global Environment Outlook process and its ministerial meetings - further implementing the call by member states at Rio + 20 to strengthen the science-policy interface.

Steiner said during the closing ceremony that the theme at this historic, universal membership Governing Council was "Rio+20: From Outcome to Implementation - and that was precisely what happened over the past five days."

He said the ministers responsible for the environment also took forward the wider implementation of the Rio+20 outcome document - the Future We Want - across a broad sweep of issues and actions from support for 30 countries to make a green economy transition; building a stronger science-policy interface, and strengthening the exercise of environmental laws to fast tracking action on persistent and emerging issues.

He said the ministers also resolved to support renewable energy under the UN climate convention and the decade-long initiative on decoupling natural resource use from economy growth - in short the 10YFP.

"Heads of State at Rio+20 grasped the sobering science, laid out in reports like UNEP's Global Environment Outlook-5, and put in the foundations for new pathways and new directions to achieve a sustainable century - here ministers and delegations from over 150 nations have been the architects and designers of an evolved UNEP with greater authority, impact and pathways to deliver the Future We Want," he added.

The first Universal Membership of the UNEP Governing Council agreed that the UNEP-led consortium will host and coordinate the Climate Technology Center and Network (CTCN) which will be the implementing arm of the Technology Mechanism of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The CTCN will work on leap-frogging the technical and financial hurdles to the even greater take-up of clean and renewable energies to low carbon tranportation and energy efficient buildings.

The ministers also committed to the operationalization of a decade-long initiative to decouple economic growth from unsustainable use of natural resources and pollution generation- the 10 Year Framework of Programs for Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns (10YFP for SCP).

The UNEP-hosted initiative will assist countries in areas from sustainable public procurement, lifestyles and education to sustainable buildings and construction and sustainable tourism, including ecotourism - again bringing from outcome to implementation other key aspects of the Rio+20 Future We Want.

President of the Governing Council, Hassan Abdel Hilal, Minister of Environment, Forests and Physical Development of Sudan, noted many ministers called for a driving forward of the Green Economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.

The president observed that many representatives observed that UNEP should play an important role in promoting environmental sustainability in the proposed goals and post-2015 agenda

According to the statement, several delegates suggested that efforts should initially focus on areas where fast action might happen soonest including in area such as energy, water and agriculture.

The meeting also discussed the role of the environment in the post-2015 agenda and the discourse surrounding the development of a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which was informed by the presence of Amina J Mohamed, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon's Special Adviser on Post-2015 Development Planning.

Governments also gave a big boost to environmental law, building on the UNEP-convened World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law for Environmental Sustainability held during Rio+20 last June.

Ministers and delegates also asked UNEP to lead the UN system and support national governments in the development and implementation of environmental rule of law including boosting information disclosure, environmental auditing and independent dispute resolution.