NAIROBI: As negotiators haggle over language on plastics, climate change and finance at the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-7) in Nairobi, questions about the future of multilateralism hang heavy in the air. From the Paris Agreement era to today’s contested plastics treaty talks and blocked scientific summaries, the system that underpins global environmental governance is clearly wobbling – even as climate impacts, pollution and biodiversity loss accelerate.
On the sidelines of UNEA, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Inger Andersen spoke to a select group of journalists, supported by GRID-Arendal, about what she sees as mounting pressure on multilateralism, why UNEA’s mandate still matters, how climate finance must evolve, and why politics is increasingly intruding into scientific processes.
Here are the excerpts:
We’re seeing countries push back against even mentioning plastics and climate change in UNEA’s medium-term strategy. With similar tensions at climate COPs and other forums, is multilateralism in environmental governance breaking down?
Multilateralism is certainly under strain, but I wouldn’t say it is breaking down – and I would immediately ask: what’s the alternative?
We have 193 UN member states. One of them stepped out of the Paris Agreement for a period – that was its sovereign right. But the others stayed, and almost all turned up in Belém to negotiate. So yes, the politics are difficult, and sometimes we don’t move at the speed we need. But we are still moving.
Look at the basic reality: if I pollute a transboundary river, that water flows into your country. If my ocean is full of plastic, your ocean is full of plastic. If I experience climate change, so do you. We really are one family of nations on one planet, and these problems can only be resolved collectively.
Our analysis shows current climate pledges put us on a trajectory well above 1.5°C – somewhere around the mid-twos – which is better than where we were at Paris but still not good enough. At the same time, markets are shifting. Utility-scale solar and wind are now cheaper than fossil-based power in many places. Oil and coal producers are investing heavily in renewables because it makes economic sense. So, are we where we need to be? No. Are we moving? Yes. And the task is to speed up, not to give up on multilateralism.
When some governments try to tell UNEA to “stay out” of climate or plastics, where do you draw the line? How do you define UNEA’s mandate?
UNEA’s mandate is actually very clear. This is a 53-year-old institution whose job is to keep the global environment under review and advocate for it. That means anything and everything that affects the planet – from the stratosphere to the deepest ocean trench.
That naturally includes plastics, hazardous chemicals and climate change. In fact, it was UNEA’s predecessor governing council that took the decision to establish the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) as a scientific body. UNEP hosts the IPCC together with WMO (World Meteorological Organization) here in Nairobi. So climate science and climate governance are literally part of what this body set in motion.
We also house a strong environmental law division, with over a hundred lawyers. We don’t arrive in a country and tell them what to do. But when country A or B says, “We need regulations on persistent organic pollutants or on PFAS; can you help?” – that’s our job. Until member states explicitly curtail that mandate, our mandate is the environment on this planet, whether we’re talking about the atmosphere, the ocean, chemicals or biodiversity.
How do you see the synergy between UNEA and the UNFCCC COPs and other environmental conventions? Some people think UNEA is sidelined once a treaty is born.
I actually see it the other way round: every time the world decides it needs a treaty, it validates UNEA’s role.
Most of the environmental conventions people know – and many they don’t – have, in one way or another, rolled off the UNEA conveyor belt or that of its predecessor. When we recognise a serious environmental problem, we debate it here and decide we need a convention, framework or protocol. That process has led to around 19 agreements: Basel, Rotterdam, Stockholm and Minamata on chemicals; the Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer; the Convention on Biological Diversity; the Convention on Migratory Species; CITES on trade in wild fauna and flora, and so on.
If we land a global instrument on plastic pollution, it will be another of those children. Once a convention exists, of course, it has its own life and its own COP – but they all keep coming back to UNEA. This is where the synergies live.
Here is where we ask, for example: if the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol drives up energy efficiency, what does that mean for avoided climate warming? If we restore and protect 30 per cent of land and sea for biodiversity by 2030, how much extra carbon can those ecosystems store to help the climate regime? UNEA is the place where these links between conventions are made, not just legally but scientifically and practically.
Climate finance is chronically inadequate and often fails to reach local authorities and communities. What needs to change – and what role do you see for UNEA?
First, we should be honest that finance is both essential and politically sensitive. In Paris, countries promised to mobilise 100 billion dollars a year by 2020. Because of COVID-19 and other crises, that level was only reached around 2023. We should acknowledge the delay, but we should also acknowledge that the commitment was finally met.
Now we have new targets: about 300 billion dollars in public climate finance and around 1.3 trillion in public-private flows by 2035. Those are big numbers, and our job at UNEP and UNEA is to keep tracking who is delivering and who isn’t.
At the local level, the issue is partly legal and institutional. If climate finance comes as a loan, a city may not be allowed by national law to borrow. If it comes as a grant, the question is whether the ministry of finance will pass it on to municipalities or communities. Some of this is changing. We heard the governor of Nairobi describe solar-powered cold storage in local markets so traders don’t lose their produce – that is climate-aligned investment at city scale.
But the broader point is this: the longer we procrastinate on mitigation, the higher the final bill. Climate change will send the invoices whether we like it or not – in the form of fires, floods, heatwaves, droughts and disease. Those invoices will hit public budgets in the North and South alike. Physics is not political. So it is simply cheaper and smarter to invest now, including in the global South and at local level, than to pay for escalating loss and damage later.
You said “physics is not political.” How does UNEP operate in war and conflict zones where politics, security and environment are all colliding?
We don’t enforce anything; that’s not our role, and we are not a supranational authority. But we are mandated to assess the environmental impacts of war, conflict and disasters.
Sadly, there is no shortage of examples – from Darfur to the Balkans, from Kuwait after the Gulf War to Haiti, Ukraine or Gaza. In any conflict, the first priority is humanitarian response; that is not UNEP’s work, but we recognise it is essential. Even after the guns fall silent and humanitarian needs are addressed, there can be decades of environmental damage: contaminated soils and water, destroyed industrial facilities, toxic hotspots in dense urban areas, or critically damaged water infrastructure in arid regions.
Our job is to document that damage and help countries and partners plan for environmental recovery. We’ve done that, for instance, through recent assessments in Ukraine and Gaza. Ultimately, of course, the best form of environmental protection in war zones is peace. The UN Secretary-General has been very clear in calling for ceasefires and political solutions. But as long as conflicts occur, someone has to count the environmental cost and help societies factor it into reconstruction – and that is part of UNEP’s multilateral mandate too.