UNEP Governing Council

The twenty fifth session of UNEP Governing Council finished on the 20th of February . One of the really interesting discussions around the 2012 agenda was initiated by the South African Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk in a speech at the plennary session on International Environmental Governance (IEG). He outlined a roadmap on IEG:
"The first milestone will be when we meet in a year from now, in February 2010. At that meeting we should ideally adopt a Ministerial Declaration on the principles and objectives (on IEG) that will guide our further work in the run-up to Rio plus 20."

Other Ministers in the plennary and the working groups supported the use of Rio+20 for bringing a final decision on International Environmental Governance. Stakeholder Forum in the Ministeral Round Tables outlined three outcomes they hoped for on IEG - these included support for the South African inititiative but expanded to include sustainable development governance. The second outcome Stakeholder Forum wanted to see was support for the setting up of an adhoc Ministerial Working Group to prepare for the next UNEP GC in 2010 while keeping an eye on the climate change negotiations in December at the UNFCCC. This is to ensure it has a positive impact on international environmental governance. The final issue raised was to ask the UN Secretary General to consider setting up a High Level Panel or Commission on the Global Green New Deal.

All delegates at the UNEP GC were given a copy of the Donostia Declaration which was the outcome from a workshop on Earth Summit 2012 in November. If you want to follow developmengts on 2012 this can be done at the Earth Summit 2012 web site.




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