Excellency Ambassador Coimbra, Chair of the Committee of Permanent Representatives, Excellencies and distinguished guests,
A warm welcome to all to the beautiful UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi. It is a pleasure to be back here with you in Nairobi. We last convened in June, just after I took up my new role. The intervening months have, as you might expect, been hectic. But everything I have seen and done in this period has reaffirmed my conviction that there is no better time to lead this organization. This is because the world has reached a positive tipping point on environmental action.
I recently returned from New York, where I attended both the Climate Action Summit, the other 4 Summits and the General Assembly. These events made it clear that the mandate on the environment is the single most-important mandate at this point in history. At the General Assembly an unprecedented 179 heads of delegation referenced climate change in their statement in the General Debate.
So, as we meet now, we all come with a sense that the world has shifted. Governments, the private sector, civil society, and powerful young voices have come together to find new and more-sustainable ways of running our societies.
In New York, we saw new areas and initiatives emerge, among them strong backing for nature-based solutions, the UNEP-led Principles for Responsible Banking, the UN Asset Owners Alliance, the Cool Coalition, the Restoration Decade preparation, the Biodiversity imperative and many others. We saw a circular economy focus, with an emphasis on sustainable production and consumption. An emphasis on oceans. An emphasis on gender as a key priority in environmental sustainability.
And we saw young people calling my generation out. Insisting that we change our destructive ways and get off the path down which we are heading. Environmental sustainability preoccupations have gone mainstream. In our newspapers. In the broader media. Over dinner tables. In the voting booth. In cabinet meetings. In school cafeteria and classrooms. In the entertainment world. In the business world and beyond.
The key question is how UNEP can support heightened awareness of environmental issues. How UNEP can ensure that this enhanced awareness is informed by science that leads to sound policy decisions. How UNEP can ensure that this enhanced awareness leads to significant shifts towards a more sustainable future.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We all know why we need to change.
Humanity has been gobbling up land for agriculture, infrastructure and urban expansion, damaging ecosystem function and extent. Our fossil-fuel hungry societies are still pumping pollutants into the air, despite years of warnings about the damage this is doing. The upcoming Emissions Gap report tell us that we have, in the last ten years, done nowhere near enough on climate change. Annual greenhouse gas emissions are almost exactly where the first report predicted they would be in 2020 without strong action on climate change. IPBES tells us that out of our nearly 8 million species, we are set to lose about 1 million unless we take action. Our oceans are warming, acidifying and emptying of fish, all the while filling up with waste, plastic and garbage. I could list dozens more statistics to illustrate the scale of the challenges we face. But you know them as well as I do.
Today, I would like to focus on what we, the keepers of the environmental mandate, need to do to not just ride the new wave of environmental awakenings, but to guide it.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
UNEP already has tremendous assets and strengths, particularly in its staff. UNEP is the link between science and policy action by governments – a key driving force for change. UNEP collaborates with civil society and the private sector, without whom change at the speed and scale we need will not be possible. UNEP supports nations as they come to agreements around issues that require coordinated global action. UNEP hosts the secretariats of many multilateral agreements, from biodiversity and ecosystems to regional seas, from chemical waste management to protecting the ozone layer. Indeed, in the last few months, I took part in key gatherings of CITES COP, the CBD Open-Ended Working Group and the UNCCD COP, where again I witnessed the power of multilateralism.
So based on the great work that UNEP staff undertake and with the strong support of Member States and partners, I have six thoughts to share with you about how the organization can meet the challenges ahead.
First, we need to build and strengthen our organization to ensure that we can work more collaboratively across our structure.
Action on climate, ecosystems, pollution and sustainable production and consumption are closely interlinked, with action in one area benefiting the others. We need to do a better job at being “joined up”. This organization is full of smart, dedicated and creative professionals. Creating a culture of collaboration. Ensuring that the sub-programmes and their coordinators are enabled and empowered. Deploying the matrix fully. Enhancing the manner in which information flows across our organization.
Each of these dimensions will enable and help create a stronger and more impactful organization. Bringing our people closer together will spark new ideas to solve multiple challenges at once.
Second, we need be sharper about what we do, and what we do not do, to ensure that we stay aligned with the Programme of Work (POW)
While it is great to have an entrepreneurial organization, it is important that the organization is aligned with and guided by the programme of work that member states have agreed. I often speak of the POW as providing the guard-rails for our activities. As we take on new resources and new initiatives, as we decide to author new studies, it is important to review these through the lens of the PoW. Do these new activities underpin the PoW? If yes, great. If no, then we should not do them – unless it is a clear new reality that presents as both urgent and critical. And, obviously, the CPR should be advised of such diversions.
Third, we need to consider the root causes and drivers of growing environmental degradation and loss, and assess how best UNEP can reach into that space.
We need to reach out to every sector that impacts the environment and influence decisions made there. Terrestrial biodiversity loss is mainly caused by land-use changes, largely agriculture, while both marine and terrestrial ecosystems are under threat from over exploitation and pollution flows. But agriculture, fisheries and industry are key to our well-being, growth and development. And the financial system that enables these industries operates without alignment with environmental sustainability dimensions.
So, the question is how to ensure that UNEP is able to influence the sectors that impact on environmental loss. We do this through our data, our knowledge, our evidence, and our technical and policy insights. We do this through capacity building and technical assistance. We do this through our outreach, our projects and programmes. We do this through our networks.
Our data and information must be available beyond the Ministries of Environment, so that decisions in the classroom, the boardroom, cabinets and public squares are informed by sound environmental understanding.
Making this happen will also involve looking at how we organize the UN Environment Assemblies (UNEAs) and who we invite to them. And being sure that we draw on, and hear, the voices of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements at UNEA, so as to put wind in the sails of these milestone agreements.
The recent General Assembly and Climate Summit can inspire us here.
Fourth, we need to place nature-based solutions – together with decarbonization, detoxification and decoupling – at the heart of our work.
While much focus is on climate change, and rightly so, we all know that fixing the planet’s problems is not as simple as stopping using fossil fuels. We need to fundamentally rethink how our economies run, how we exploit resources, how we build our cities and infrastructure, how we grow our food, how we manage our waste. Basically, how we live our lives.
The only way we can protect our planet, and so our future as a species, is by tackling these complex issues in an integrated manner, and by ensuring that we leave no-one behind in an inclusive transformation. So, as we move forward, I will be looking closely to see how to embed these dimensions, including a stronger focus on nature, into the organization’s work.
Fifth, we need to set clearer targets and meet them.
Organizations are, fundamentally, judged on what they achieve. As I said before, this organization has achieved much. But we have not always been able to quantify and communicate what we achieve.
A real shift was made in the last Programme of Work towards measuring our results. We can strengthen that so that we shift to an even stronger results-based management, which will enable us to set and meet meaningful targets.
And six. In this reforming UN, UNEP is getting stronger and “growing wings” for deeper and further reach.
We here at UNEP are not a large agency. We do not have field presence in most countries. Yet information, data and evidence are useful if it is converted into policy shifts and action on the ground. This is where the UN Reform comes in at a superb time to aid us in making greater impact. The reforms provide us with a unique opportunity to work through the new Resident Coordinator system. While we are still working this through, the reforms provide tremendous opportunities for UNEP. We will work with our friends at UNDP and elsewhere to expand our reach. We will play to our technical strength, while drawing on their field strength. We look forward to telling you more about this work during the week.
Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is on the basis of these thoughts and with this strategic direction in mind that I have begun a conversation on transformative change with the UNEP Leadership Team and staff on how we can make UNEP stronger, more impactful, and more strategic. On how we can deliver more and better results. How we can build on solid fiduciary and internal risk controls, while delivering sharp, timely and impactful products.
We will work to build institutional muscle to become more strategic in our programmatic work. To draw on the strengths of the rest of the UN system in our effort to drive environmental sustainability. To integrate our structure into a more cohesive and less fragmented whole. To track our results in a more coordinated way. To build a culture of support, excellence and performance. With your guidance and strong support, with a great staff, we can surely get there.
In closing, let me just say that we have a window of opportunity over the next few years to bring real change to the world, not just the organization. The NDCs under the Paris Agreement are due for revision. The post-2020 biodiversity framework will be agreed. The UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration will try to take advantage of the multiple benefits of restoring degraded land.
All of these processes, and many more, are backed by a historic groundswell of public support for action on environmental challenges. UNEP and its members states have been instrumental in bringing the world to this tipping point. A strong and fit-for-purpose UNEP – both supporting and supported by member states – will be essential in helping the world deliver on its commitments.
Thank you.
Inger Andersen
Executive Director, UN Environment Programme
(Prepared for delivery)
