Guest Blog: UNEA: The most important environmental meeting that most people have never heard of
Guest blog by Oli Brown who is an Associate Fellow, Energy, Environment and Resources Department, Chatham House. Former UNEP Senior Programme Coordinator, Disasters and Conflicts sub-programme. It was first published here. As I write, delegates are starting to arrive in Nairobi for the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) . The Assembly starts in earnest on Monday 11 th March and will run for five hectic days of meetings, side events and late-night negotiator huddles, probably ending late on Friday 15 th March. Next week’s gathering will be just the fourth time that the Assembly has ever met. The first UNEA was held in 2014, and it has been organized roughly every two years since. This year’s version will bring together more than four thousand representatives from 190+ governments, civil society groups, the private sector and other parts of the United Nations. The main assembly meeting of ministers of the environment is surrounded by a clutc...