Dr. Mostafa Kamal Tolba UNEP’s second Executive Director dies
Another sad day for the world of environment and sustainable development with the passing of Dr. Mostafa Kamal Tolba. In 1972, he led Egypt’s delegation to the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment which gave rise to UNEP. Initially he was appointed as Maurice Strong’s Deputy Director and took over from him in 1975 serving as UNEP Executive Director until 1992. He worked tirelessly to promote the environment in the 17 years as Executive Director and built UNEP into a global voice for the environment. The idea of a global commission on environment and development was first promoted by Canada in 1982 at the ten-year anniversary of Stockholm. This would become the World Commission on Environment and Development which subsequently birthed the Rio Earth Summit. His work will probably be best remembered around the development of the Framework convention on Ozone Depleting Chemicals in 1985 and its subsequent Montreal Protocol reducing CFCs in the world in a very short time...