Why in the news?
The seventh UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-7) begins in Nairobi amid deep divisions over the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Medium-Term Strategy (MTS) 2026–2030 and a significant decline in core funding. The MTS acts as UNEP’s operational mandate guiding global work on climate, biodiversity, pollution and land restoration.
| UPSC Prelims Pointers
About UNEP
- Headquarters: Nairobi, Kenya
- Established: 1972 (Stockholm Conference outcome)
- Governing body: UN Environment Assembly (UNEA)
- Works on: climate, biodiversity, pollution, land, chemicals, resource efficiency, environmental governance.
About UNEA
- Meets biennially.
- World’s highest-level decision-making body on environment.
- Each member state of the UN has one vote.
UNEP’s Environment Fund (EF)
- Voluntary, but based on an indicative scale of contributions.
- Provides core, unearmarked funding.
- Decline in EF impacts UNEP’s operational independence.
Medium-Term Strategy (MTS)
- 5-year framework guiding programmatic priorities.
- Needed for budget approval.
- Current debate concerns the 2026–2030 MTS text.
Triple Planetary Crisis
- Climate change
- Biodiversity loss
- Pollution and waste
Plastics Treaty Process
- Negotiated under the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC).
- UNEP serves as secretariat, but mandate expansion is contested.
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| Which one of the following is associated with the issue of control and phasing out of the use of ozone-depleting substances? (2015)
(a) Bretton Woods Conference
(b) Montreal Protocol
(c) Kyoto Protocol
(d) Nagoya Protocol |
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