The conference you didn’t hear about

Opinion

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This article was published 26/03/2024 (554 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The most important global meeting you’ve never heard of concluded on March 1 in Nairobi. It was the sixth United Nations Environment Assembly, or UNEA 6, organized through the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Over a two-week period, there were preparatory meetings (including a Youth Environment Assembly), punctuated in the middle over the weekend by the Global Major Groups and Stakeholders Forum, leading into the five days of UNEA 6.

In 2012, UNEP was given oversight over all the UN environmental initiatives, some of which (like the COPs on climate change) seem to have a life of their own. A dozen years later, that oversight and coordination is starting to bear fruit — but too few people seem to find out what happens at UNEA.

For one thing, there is just not enough drama to break into the headlines. This was the largest gathering yet, with something like 7,000 people registered for some part of the process. UNEA itself is structured like the General Assembly, with each member state having two seats (and one vote). What makes it interesting is the active role played by civil society organizations (CSOs) — as observers, without a vote, but able to offer interventions on the floor of the plenary and in many of the committees.

Because of the close quarters, in the UNON offices in Nairobi, there are many opportunities for CSO representatives to mingle with the delegates. (I was fortunate to participate in UNEAs 1-3, and in the extended Governing Council meetings the year before, accredited through the United Church of Canada.)

We developed our talents for engaging ambassadors and negotiators — it was better, for example, to target them coming out of the bathroom, not going in! Arranging to have a spare seat at the few tables in the dining areas often meant gaining some interesting lunch companions — whom you could meet again, at the general receptions in the evening.

Unlike at the COP meetings on climate change, at UNEA we were not kept outside, watching and fuming in frustration at the negotiators — and fossil fuel lobbyists — inside. Moreover, as the global environmental situation has gotten worse, at least some of the delegates seriously wanted new ideas about what to do — and they were able quietly to ask us. There is something really gratifying about hearing your own words come back in the plenary or in committee, solving problems that were otherwise too thorny for the politicians to handle without help.

The language of the debates reflected the seriousness of the situation. CSOs made thoughtful contributions to the dialogue that took place throughout the UNEAs I attended, and also this year, as they discussed the triple planetary crisis we face relating to climate change; nature and biodiversity loss; and pollution.

The language of their statements this year was more pungent and direct, but still respectful, as they called on the member states of the UN to actually start doing what was necessary to manage these inter-linked crises.

The outcomes of UNEA 6 are available on-line (along with the statements). They are specific efforts to manage a variety of current problems today. (Look up UNEA 6 and you will find the related website.) The players are starting to get a handle on things, as well — there are more resolutions, about more issues, attempting more things than there were ten years ago at the first UNEA.

We need more such events, with firm timelines for implementing their outcomes — something that didn’t happen at COP28 in Dubai. We can use multilateral environmental agreements to move things forward, even if there is no clear enforcement mechanism yet in place. In the end, Mother Nature will be the strongest enforcer of all — places that adopt better environmental practices will have the chance of better outcomes than the places that don’t.

But you won’t find out about UNEA, and UNEP, and these shifts in international environmental law, unless you look for them yourself.

Very little of the global news media are independent of the deliberate influence of the fossil fuel and parallel lobbies that want business as usual to continue. Even the few independents (like this newspaper) are constrained by budgets and declining revenues that limit what they can offer to their audiences.

So, because it has to bleed in order to lead (as the news quip goes), nothing about UNEA 6 made it into the headlines. Nor did advertisers leap to their chequebooks to fund stories about what happened those two weeks in Nairobi.

But in a world where good news is in short supply, where the headlines are full of anger and spite and revenge, you need to know there are places where ordinary people are sincerely working toward a better future that still (for now, anyway) remains possible.

And that is good news. For a change.

Peter Denton was a Major Groups and Stakeholders Regional Representative for North America to UNEP from 2014-2016.