Acting on the recommendation of theSecretary-General, the General Assembly extended for two years the appointmentof Achim Steiner as Executive Director of the United Nations EnvironmentProgramme. Mr. Steniner now also served as the Honorary Chairman of the AdvisoryBoard of UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development.

Before joining UNEP, Mr. Steiner served asDirector General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)from 2001 to 2006, and prior to that as Secretary General of the WorldCommission on Dams. His professional career has included assignments withgovernmental, non-governmental and international organizations across theglobe, including India, Pakistan, Germany, Zimbabwe, USA, Vietnam, SouthAfrica, Switzerland and Kenya. He worked both at grassroots level as well as atthe highest levels of international policy-making to address the interface betweenenvironmental sustainability, social equity and economic development.

Mr. Steiner, a German and Braziliannational, was born in Brazil in 1961. His educational background includes a BAfrom the University of Oxford as well as an MA from the University of Londonwith a specialization in development economics, regional planning, andinternational development and environment policy. He also studied at the GermanDevelopment Institute in Berlin and the Harvard Business School.

 During Mr. Steiner's tenure as UNUnder-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, UNEP has made significantstrides?from the launch of the Green Economy Initiative in 2008 to thestrengthening of UNEP as part of the Rio+20 outcome, the establishment of thefirst international science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystems(IPBES), the adoption of the milestone Minamata Convention on mercury, and theproduction of authoritative and influential environmental assessments and toolsto guide political negotiation processes as well as policy development andimplementation at the global, regional and international levels.

 TheStrengthening of UNEP

 The Rio+20 Summit, followed by a UN GeneralAssembly resolution, approved the upgrading and strengthening of UNEP.

 As a result, the first United NationsEnvironment Assembly (UNEA) will be held in June 2014. It will be thehighest-level global platform for environmental policy making ? with universalmembership and full participation from all 193 UN member states ? feedingdirectly into the General Assembly.

At the same time, there has been a steadyincrease in funding for UNEP since 2006, with record levels of resourcesmobilized for 2013/14.

 TheGreen Economy

 At Rio+20, more than 190 nations gave thegreen light to an inclusive Green Economy in the context of sustainabledevelopment and poverty eradication. An inclusive Green Economy has thepotential to improve human well-being and social equity, while significantlyreducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. Today, the GreenEconomy is at the heart of efforts to design an equitable and effectivePost-2015 development agenda.

 The initiative was first launched in October2008, at the height of the economic crises. It aimed to mobilize and re-focusthe global economy towards investments in clean technologies and 'natural'infrastructure such as forests and soils as the best bet for real growth,combating climate change and triggering an employment boom in the 21st century.

 At the time, Mr. Steiner said: "Thefinancial, fuel and food crises of 2008 are in part a result of speculation anda failure of governments to intelligently manage and focus markets. But theyare also part of a wider market failure triggering ever deeper and disturbinglosses of natural capital and nature-based assets coupled with an over-relianceof finite, often subsidized fossil fuels."

 "The flip side of the coin is theenormous economic, social and environmental benefits likely to arise fromcombating climate change and re-investing in natural infrastructure - benefitsranging from new green jobs in clean tech and clean energy businesses up toones in sustainable agriculture and conservation-based enterprises," headded.

 In early 2014, Mr. Steiner launched in Davosan inquiry into policy options for guiding the global financial system toinvest in the transition to a green economy. The inquiry aims to engage, informand guide policy makers, financial market actors and other stakeholdersconcerned with the health of the financial system and its potential for shapingthe future economy. Ultimately, it will lay out a series of options foradvancing a sustainable financial system.

 TheMinamata Convention

 International efforts to address mercury anotorious heavy metal with significant health and environmental effects weredelivered a significant boost with governments agreeing to a global,legally-binding treaty to prevent emissions and releases in January 2013. TheMinamata Convention on Mercury which will reduce emissions and releases of thetoxic metal into air, land and water and phase out many products that containmercury ? was opened for signature on 10 October 2013. It has since been signedby 96 countries and ratified by one (the United States).

 New International Science-policy Platform

 The Intergovernmental Platform onBiodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was set up to assist governmentsand citizens to better understand the state, trends and challenges facing thenatural world and humanity in the 21st century.

 The Platform will bridge the gulf betweenthe wealth of scientific knowledge on the accelerating declines and degradationof the natural world, with knowledge on effective solutions and decisivegovernment action required to reverse these damaging trends.

 Its various roles will include carrying outhigh-quality peer reviews of the wealth of science on biodiversity andecosystem services emerging from research institutes across the globe in orderto provide gold standard reports to governments.

 These reports will not only cover the state,status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystems, but will also outlinetransformational policy options and responses to bring about real change intheir fortunes.

 IPBES will achieve this in part byprioritizing, making sense of and bringing consistency to the great variety ofreports and assessments conducted by United Nations bodies, research centres,universities and others as they relate to biodiversity and ecosystem services.

 On the Road to a New Climate ChangeAgreement

 Under Mr. Steiner's leadership, UNEP hasissued four editions of its authoritative annual Emissions Gap Report,detailing the amount of CO2 equivalent emissions that must be cut in order tokeep the planet on track within its 2°C target and head off a host of negativeimpacts.

 The Emissions Gap Report 2013-involving 44scientific groups in 17 countries and coordinated by UNEP-was released ahead ofthe Climate Change Conference of the Parties in Warsaw.

 It finds that although pathways exist thatcould reach the 2oC target with higher emissions, not narrowing the gap willexacerbate mitigation challenges after 2020.

 This will mean much higher rates of globalemission reductions in the medium term; greater lock-in of carbon-intensiveinfrastructure; greater dependence on often unproven technologies in the mediumterm; greater costs of mitigation in the medium and long term; and greaterrisks of failing to meet the 2°C target. Even if nations meet their currentclimate pledges, greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 are likely to be 8 to 12gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent above the level that would provide a likely chanceof remaining on the least-cost pathway.

 If the gap is not closed or significantlynarrowed by 2020, the door to many options to limit temperature increase to alower target of 1.5° C will be closed, further increasing the need to rely onfaster energy-efficiency improvements and biomass with carbon capture andstorage.

 At the time, Mr. Steiner said, "Delayedactions means a higher rate of climate change in the near term and likely morenear-term climate impacts, as well as the continued use of carbon-intensive andenergy-intensive infrastructure. This 'lock-in' would slow down theintroduction of climate-friendly technologies and narrow the developmentalchoices that would place the global community on the path to a sustainable,green future."

 "However, the stepping stone of the2020 target can still be achieved by strengthening current pledges and byfurther action, including scaling up international cooperation initiatives inareas such as energy efficiency, fossil fuel subsidy reform and renewableenergy," he added. "Even agriculture can contribute, as directemissions from this sector are currently responsible for 11 per cent of globalgreenhouse gas emissions-more if its indirect emissions are taken intoaccount."

 TheEnvironment under Review

 UNEP is mandated to keep the state of theglobal environment under review.

 UNEP Live, a cutting-edge, dynamic newplatform to collect, process and share the world's best environmental scienceand research, was launched in January 2014.

 The platform provides data access to boththe public and policy-makers using distributed networks, cloud computing, bigdata and improved search functions.

 It will fill gaps between data providers andconsumers and will focus on the latest information and emerging issues. Throughthe platform's apps, multimedia content and digital publishing tools, userswill have access to data from UNEP, national and regional resources and otherknowledge and data providers. Moreover, through these tools and resources, UNEPLive will extend the knowledge base for global environmental policy-making andevidence-based analysis.

 It will also support the streamlining ofnational monitoring, reporting and verification of data for global and regionalenvironmental goals, including the post-2015 agenda and the SustainableDevelopment Goals.

 Public access to data is a fundamentalelement in the transformation to a vibrant green economy. Better access allowscitizens to better understand - and even participate in the collection of -data on environmental changes.

 The role of the public in "citizenscience", or the crowd-sourcing of data, is one of the most cutting-edgeand exciting tools emerging in the global research arena. It provides people agreater voice in policy development and monitoring, which is crucial to aninclusive green economy.

 Through the UNEP Live initiative, UNEP willwork with a number of global partners (UN-DESA - on implementing frameworks forenvironmental data and statistics; UN Stats Division - in coordinating supportto countries to improve access to information; the Food and AgricultureOrganization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization onintegrated indicators for the sustainable development goals; as well as UNregional offices) to advise on which environmental data sets should beprioritized for collection and sharing with the public.

 GlobalEnvironment Outlook (GEO-5)

 GEO-5 is the most authoritative assessmentof the state, trends and outlook of the global environment. The report isproduced over three years in a process that involved more than six hundredexperts worldwide, who collate and analyze data from every continent to buildup a detailed picture of the world's wellbeing.

 The fifth edition of GEO-5, launched on theeve of the Rio+20 Summit in June 2011, assessed 90 of the most-importantenvironmental goals and objectives and found that significant progress had onlybeen made in four.

 According to the wide-ranging assessment,the world continues to speed down an unsustainable path despite over 500internationally agreed goals and objectives to support the sustainablemanagement of the environment and improve human wellbeing.

 The report cautions that if humanity doesnot urgently change its ways, several critical thresholds may be exceeded,beyond which abrupt and generally irreversible changes to the life-supportfunctions of the planet could occur.

 "If current trends continue, if currentpatterns of production and consumption of natural resources prevail and cannotbe reversed and 'decoupled', then governments will preside over unprecedentedlevels of damage and degradation," said Mr. Steiner. "GEO-5 remindsworld leaders and nations meeting at Rio+20 why a decisive and definingtransition towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient, job-generating GreenEconomy is urgently needed. The scientific evidence, built over decades, isoverwhelming and leaves little room for doubt."

 "The moment has come to put away theparalysis of indecision, acknowledge the facts and face up to the commonhumanity that unites all peoples," he added.

 Notesto Editors

 Mr. Steiner is the recipient of a number ofinternational awards and prizes including:

2010 Leadership Award for PrincipledPragmatism - Tällberg Foundation; Shark Guardian of the Year 2008 - SharkProject; Schubert Preis - 2008 Bruno H. Schubert Stiftung Steiger Award -Umwelt 2007. In 2009 His Serene Highness, Prince Albert of Monaco conferredupon Mr. Steiner the decoration of Officer of the Order of Saint Charles.

 Back in 2006, the UN General Assemblyunanimously elected Mr. Steiner as the Executive Director of UNEP for afour-year term, acting on the nomination of then Secretary-General Kofi Annan,.He became the fifth Executive Director in UNEP's history.

At its 83rd plenary meeting in 2010, the UNGeneral Assembly, on the proposal of the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,re-elected Mr. Achim Steiner as Executive Director of the United NationsEnvironment Programme for another four-year term.

Mr. Steiner was appointed asDirector-General of the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON), where heserved from March 2009 to May 2011.

Mr. Steiner also chairs two UN system wideentities:

HLCP - High-level Committee on Programmes ofthe United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB); andEMG - United Nations Environment Management Group. He serves on a number ofinternational advisory boards, including the China Council for InternationalCooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED).

Source from: http://www.unep.org/newscentre