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Fighting Fire with a Thermometer? Environmental Efforts of the United Nations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2020

Maria Ivanova
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Abstract

Environmental problems were not among the core issues for the United Nations at its creation in 1945. In the 1970s, however, they created a crescendo of public concern as the threats posed by toxic chemicals, large-scale destruction of natural ecosystems, and the loss of species became visible and were obviously linked to human activity. Pollution, it was clear, did not stop at national borders and solutions required common effort. As part of the special issue on “The United Nations at Seventy-Five: Looking Back to Look Forward,” this essay explores how, as the only institution equipped to identify global problems and generate collective action toward their resolution, the UN became the platform for creating multilateral environmental agreements, convening global conferences, and mobilizing national and international effort through a progressively larger number of institutions at the national and international level to guide decisions and influence behavior. We have moved the environmental needle in terms of information, institutions, and awareness. Yet, many environmental problems persist, some are getting worse, and new challenges and, indeed, crises are emerging.

Keywords

global environmental governanceUnited Nations Environment ProgrammeUNEPenvironmental policymultilateral environmental agreementsclimate changeozone depletion
Type
The United Nations at Seventy-Five: Looking Back to Look Forward
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 34 , Special Issue 3: The United Nations at Seventy-Five: Looking Back to Look Forward , Fall 2020 , pp. 339 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

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Footnotes

1This article draws on the work in the author's forthcoming book with MIT Press: A Revisionist History of the World's Leading Environmental Institution: UNEP at Fifty.

References

NOTES

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