Kibaki lobbies for enhanced Unep mandate
President Kibaki on Monday lobbied for the transformation of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) into a specialized UN agency for the achievement of green development.
“This will enable us to place equal importance on the environmental sector as has been placed on the other sectors of sustainable development,” the President told 12th Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council\Global Ministerial Environment Forum.
President Kibaki told the session that the African Union has taken a common position to support the transformation of UNEP into a specialized UN agency.
Such a transformation, he said, would create broader legitimacy through universal membership and result in better coherence in decision-making.
“It will also enable more efficient implementation of the decisions,” President Kibaki said, and called on the UNEP Governing Council to support the “African position and endorse the transformation of UNEP into a specialized organization based here in Nairobi.”
At Gigiri, UNEP is the only UN headquarters based in Africa and is currently celebrating 40 years of existence.
The President was accompanied by UNEP executive director Achim Steiner, Uruguay Minister for Environment Graciela Muslera and Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula,
President Kibaki said achieving green development and reversing environmental degradation requires strong institutions and that without reforms in the international environment governance, environmental sustainability will continue to remain weak and sustainable development elusive.
On Monday, President Kibaki also called for the elevation of the Global Ministerial Forum from being just a forum for dialogue to being the global authoritative voice on environmental sustainability.
“It should also be elevated to serve as a link between global environmental policy-making and global environmental financing. I am sure this is the interest of all of us as it will promote sustainable development and poverty eradication throughout the world,” President Kibaki said.
President Kibaki said Kenya has embraced green growth as a national priority to guide the country’s future development and achieve climate resilience.
“We believe that a green economy must foster accelerated economic development, address poverty eradication and improve social welfare,”
he said.
President Kibaki regretted that despite advances made over the past 40 years, environmental degradation continues to limit development options of many countries especially the developing nations.
He added that the scale and frequency of environmental disasters are often beyond national capacities to manage.
“The disasters also affect, and even reverse, gains made in poverty eradication and sustainable development objectives. Sadly, the natural capital, which is the basic wealth for many nations and especially the poor, is being lost at alarming rates,” President Kibaki said.
He pushed for more efforts towards environmental conservation and protection and setting of world on a low-carbon growth pathway “which incorporates the real values of natural ecosystems.”
The session in Gigiri is the last global gathering of Environmental ministers before the UN Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in Rio de Janeiro later this year and President Kibaki urged the participants to build consensus that will determine the outcome of the forthcoming UN conference.
A decision to establish UNEP in Nairobi was made in Stockholm in 1972 and since then substantial progress has been made in environmental conservation and protection.
“Last December in Durban, for example, the world made great strides towards establishing a more effective international regime to address climate change which the most serious environmental challenge of our time,” President Kibaki said.
On Monday, UNEP also launched two landmark studies detailing critical and emerging issues in the global environment.
The Foresight Report-the results of a consultative process involving more than 400 scientists, ranked 21 priority emerging issues for the 21st century, all of which experts say require action in the next one to three years.
The emerging issues range from new challenges on food safety, to tackling inland water degradation in developing countries.
UNEP also released the latest study from the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) series-the organisation’s flagship environmental assessment.
The GEO-5 Guide for Policymakers will provide a preview of the overall
GEO-5 assessment, which is set for release on World Environment Day, on June 5. The rigorous scientific assessment analyses trends in the global environment, options for policy action to achieve internationally agreed goals and solutions to current challenges.
