The sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) convenes just as intense preparations and negotiations ramp up for this September’s Summit of the Future. How should these two important multilateral processes intersect? How and what should UNEA-6 feed into the Summit? 

We could start by advancing the proposal that the protection and preservation of the earth system become a fourth pillar—alongside peace and security, human rights, and development—of the United Nations. 

After the horrors and destruction of the Second World War, avoiding international warfare, ending the abuse of human rights, and promoting robust development were judged to be the issues most integral to human well-being and progress. To these critical areas must now be added the existential risks of environmental breakdown. “Addressing risks to our planet needs to be part of every decision, every policy, every investment and every budget,” wrote Secretary General António Guterres in his September 2021 Our Common Agenda report. 

The institutions needed to effectively reorganize humanity’s relationship with the natural world cannot be established in a handful of months. Yet the Summit of the Future and its preparatory processes can and should be seized as an opportunity to begin building foundations for new institutions—and UNEA-6 can be a collective first step. 

The steady development of technological and scientific capacity over the past 80 years was a story of progress and advancement, but also one that resulted in an often-fragmented architecture of global environmental governance. Again and again, humanity developed abilities that noticeably affected the natural environment (e.g. chlorofluorocarbons) and only afterward developed the ability to perceive the consequences, often negative (e.g. ozone depletion), of that impact. 

Each new crisis led to its own set of structures, from plastic pollution to hazardous chemicals and waste to nitrogen management; climate change to biodiversity loss to desertification; the list goes on, each as real and pressing as the next, and each inseparable from the rest. 

New challenges gave rise to new agreements, resulting in hundreds of environment-related declarations and resolutions.

Every such treaty was, of course, an advance. Yet the process as a whole was unavoidably piecemeal and ad-hoc. 

The need for a more integrated environmental regime is increasingly recognized. The zero draft of the Pact for the Future, for example, does integrate environmental concerns as a cross-cutting issue, but not in a way that raises them to a level commensurate with the crisis we face. 

This is where UNEA can play a key role in presenting earth systems governance as a necessary fourth pillar—in spirit and effect, if not yet in formal structure—of the UN. 

Detailed thinking has already been developed along these lines. The second “transformative shift” proposed in the report of the High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, A Breakthrough for People and Planet, for example, contains a variety of concrete suggestions. Among these: strengthening UNEP and UNEA with mandates and resources comparable to the UN’s development, peace and security, and human rights institutions; establishing a “Science- Policy-Action Network”; creating a global hub for the conservation, preservation, and dissemination of Indigenous knowledge; establishing a public accountability platform for planetary commitments; and others. All such resources should be given the serious consideration they deserve. 

Underlying any specific proposal is the broad principle that strengthening the legal framework relating to the natural world would lend coherence and vigor to the biodiversity, climate, and environmental regimes, and provide a robust foundation for a system of common stewardship of the planet’s resources. 

For the Summit of the Future to succeed, it will need to reflect the concerns expressed by humanity. The well-being of the earth system represents a key area of agreement for all nations and peoples. By initiating a process to adequately address this concern, the Summit can set a standard for how global governance can be channeled to solve global challenges. UNEA-6 could send a signal that we have a moment of opportunity and a responsibility to act.

 

Daniel Perell is a Representative of the Bahá’í International Community to the United Nations