On 12 June, UNEP in collaboration with the Club of Rome EU Chapter, co-organized a panel discussion whose participants included Ugo Bardi, Professor at the University of Florence, President, Association for the Study of Peak oil and Gas, Denis Goffaux, CTO and Member of the Executive Committee of Umicore, and Ernst von Weizsäcker, Co-Chair, International Resource Panel, Co-President of the Club of Rome.

A short film explaining the premise of Bari’s book “Extracted” was screened, followed by a panel discussion focused on mineral extraction and its environmental impact, as well as the future of mineral scarcity. According to Bari, four times more money is spent on the extraction of fossil fuels than on renewables. Panel members agreed that current practices of extraction such as fracking offer only short-term solutions to the long-term problem of resource scarcity. The event took place at the Royal Academy of Belgium in Brussels.

Watch the video here  

Under the “Greening Economies in the Eastern Neighbourhood” (EaP GREEN) project, UNEP organized a training workshop on Green Economy assessment with focus on simulation analysis in collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment and Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Moldova. The main objective of the workshop was to introduce methodologies and tools for assessments on Green Economy, and to discuss and plan the next steps for conducting assessments In Moldova. Economists, statisticians, as well as representatives from government agencies and civil society attended the workshop.

As a conclusion of the workshop, participants requested UNEP to assist in conducing simulation assessment for two areas: sustainable agriculture development with a focus on organic agriculture; and energy efficiency in line with the Moldova 2020 targets. Following the workshop, national experts will start the data collection, and together with an international expert conduct simulation analysis for these two areas to demonstrate the possible environmental, economic and social impacts of shifting policies and investment to support shifting the production and consumption patterns. Once analysis is completed, it will be shared at the national consultation meeting to validate the assumption and results by the national stakeholders.

More Information: rie.tsutsumi@unep.org

On 3 June, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner and EU Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs signed a new contribution agreement on climate change in Latin America under the EUROCLIMA programme.

The European Commission and UNEP are joining forces under EUROCLIMA in order to support the integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies and measures into Latin American public development policies and plans at the national, sub-regional and regional levels. Activities under the agreement will be aligned with priorities of governments as identified by the Forum of Latin American and Caribbean Ministers of Environment" to which UNEP is providing the Secretariat through its Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.

"I trust EUROCLIMA will be a pioneering step forward towards strengthening regional cooperation, which will benefit from UNEP's strengthened mandate to support environmental cooperation at the regional level worldwide," said Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, Achim Steiner at the signing.

Watch the video here 

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner was invited to speak at the New Environmentalism Summit on 3 June, the first day of the Green Week conference organized by the European Commission. The purpose of the summit was to bring together celebrities, former politicians, business leaders, media, and other personalities to discuss why we have not collectively made the necessary breakthroughs in dealing with environmental challenges and how we might do so in the future.

Speaking alongside other environmentalist figures such as European Commissioner for the Environment Janez Potočnick, Professor and UN Special Adviser on the Millennium Development Goals Jeffrey Sachs, Director General of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Marco Lambertini, and filmmaker Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Mr Steiner reassured the efforts of environmental activists as being on the “right side of history.” He gave an optimistic perspective on the future of environmentalism, which he explained should be more focused on integrating humans in nature and all processes associated to it. “It is the people who will be at the centre of trying to determine whether an environmentally sustainable future will happen or not.“

“But as always we need to evolve our narrative,” he said. “Environmentalism today is less and less about choice – the choice we used to have about ‘do we protect this forest? do we protect this wetland? do we clean this river?’ - they have become imperatives, imperatives for survival, economic, business imperatives even if some have not yet accepted it (…). It is also about moving beyond the notion of demonizing economics. We need to make best use of economics to try to explain why we act in a certain way."

"We are faced with a civilisational challenge" he told the audience and the decisions to be taken today will have an impact on the future of five generations from now. This new era of environmentalism calls for a new consciousness, one that brings us back to a fundamental ethic, a responsibility to act for one another.

While the problems such as climate change are known, we must now articulate more the solutions, "and we are actually quite good at it", Mr Steiner said, noting the breakthroughs in developing new renewable energy infrastructure for instance.

For transformation to succeed, he advocated to look also in particular at how to change the rules of the game of capital financial markets in order “to address the fact that no government is able to finance the necessary transition in the energy, transport, urban infrastructure, needed, through public financing alone,” and announced a study he commissioned that will come out next year entitled “Inquiry into sustainable financing.” He called to become more intelligent in addressing the issue of financing. In his view we can guide where the money will be invested to make the change.

Mr Steiner further embraced the extraordinary technological advances and communications networking possibilities of our times, that “provide an extraordinary array of positive and forward looking opportunities."

Finally, he told of his admiration for those who have moved and shaped the new environmentalism over time, already back in the 70s. The environmentalism of the 21st century to which James Murray refers, is gaining in strength every day he said. "This tradition is one of the innovative forces of our society" and “each one of you should be extremely proud of being part of if you are, or extremely attracted to if you are not yet” he concluded.

More Information: alexa.froger@unep.org