Proposals for the creation of a United Nations Environmental Organization (UNEO) have come as some question the efficacy of the current United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at dealing with the scope of global environmental issues. Created to act as an anchor institution in the system of Global Environmental Governance (GEG), it has failed to meet those demands. The UNEP has been hindered by its title as a Programme as opposed to a specialized agency like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) or the World Health Organization (WHO), in addition to a lack of voluntary funding, and a location removed from the centers of political power, in Nairobi, Kenya. These factors have led to widespread calls for UNEP reform, and following the publication of Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC in February 2007, a "Paris Call for Action" read out by French President Chirac and supported by 46 countries, called for the UNEP to be replaced by a new and more powerful United Nations Environment Organization, to be modelled on the World Health Organization. The 52 countries included the European Union nations, but notably did not include the United States and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), the top five emitters of greenhouse gases.
UNEP Limiting Factors A number of factors have limited the UNEP's ability to fulfill its mandate.
Designation as a Programme The decision to establish the UNEP as a program as opposed to a Specialized Agency like the WHO has had enormous implications for UNEP's performance. "In the UN hierarchy, Programmes have the least independence and authority," and this has made it difficult for UNEP to establish authority over subsequent UN bodies dealing with the environment. Additionally, "born out of a General Assembly Resolution, its mandate was limited and deprived of any implementing powers".
Location The UNEP has been handicapped by its location in Nairobi, Kenya. The first UN body headquartered in the Global South, the move was meant to ease tensions between the developed and developing world. However, its location in Kenya has led to an isolation from other international environmental power structures, as well as a "physical fragmentation of the governance structure" due to its removal from other UN bodies headquartered in Geneva and New York City.
Funding Many of UNEP's struggles can be traced back to a lack of funding, and that lack of funding can be traced back to the UNEP's unique funding system. Unlike other international organizations, the UNEP does not have mandatory assessments but instead is reliant on the voluntary contributions of UN member states. "UNEP's unreliable and highly discretionary financial arrangement compromises the financial stability of the organization, its ability to plan beyond the current budget cycle, and its autonomy" as well as making the UNEP too dependent on certain member states which then hold undue influence in UNEP agenda setting.
UNEP's Failure as an Anchor Institution The UNEP was created to perform the tasks of an anchor institution in the system of Global Environmental Governance (GEG). According to the Nairobi Declaration on the Role and Mandate of the United Nations Environmental program, "the role of UNEP was to be the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the Environmental dimension of sustainable development within the UN system, and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment". Maria Ivanova, Director of the Global Environmental Governance Project at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, writes in a working paper entitled Assessing UNEP as Anchor Institution for the Global Environment: Lessons for the UNEO Debate that "anchor institutions are the primary, though not the only, international organizations in certain global issue areas and typically perform three core functions: 1) overseeing monitoring, assessment, and reporting on the state of the issue in their purview; 2) setting an agenda for action and advancing standards, policies, and guidelines; and 3) developing institutional capacity to address existing and emerging problems." However, while the UNEP was chartered to perform these three primary tasks, it has failed in many ways:
Monitoring, assessment and reporting The UNEP has had the most success in the areas of monitoring, assessment, and reporting; it is thought to do relatively well in the arena of global environmental assessment (GEA), and publishes the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) reports. However, it fails to analyze environmental issues at the state level, and responsibility for monitoring, assessment, and reporting is allocated to all eight divisions of UNEP, creating redundancies. Additionally, the UNEP system of reporting is disorganized and difficult to access. "The public cannot use UNEP's publications and benefit from the organization's work to the fullest due to the lack of a single easily accessible, searchable, and sortable database or catalogue of publications".
Agenda Setting "Another important function critical to the effectiveness of an anchor institution is agenda setting and management of intergovernmental processes to gain agreement on standards, policies, and guidelines or even just serving as the central forum for deliberation and debate." While UNEP has had considerable success in the creation of treaties and multilateral environmental agreements (the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Montreal Protocol on the Protection of the Ozone Layer, etc.), it has struggled to coordinate the efforts of the numerous international environmental regulatory bodies after their inception. "UNEP has not succeeded in becoming the central forum for debate and deliberation in the environmental field, like the WTO for trade or the WHO for health." This lack of a central coordinating authority has led to an erosion in the efficacy of Global Environmental Governance. "UNEP has not been able to fulfill its coordination mandate effectively in its two key areas of responsibility (1) coordination of multilateral environmental agreements and (2) coordination of the environmental activities of other international organizations".
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