My contribution to the High-Level Leadership Dialogue: Looking Back on UNEP@50
Photo by IISD/ENB Kiara Worth. This has been a great session on the last 50 years, and I particularly found Achim’s insight something we should all reflect on. My brief comments will focus on three things. First, I would like to pay tribute to Maurice Strong not only as has been said the first director of UNEP but so much of what we do builds on his vision. Without his personal push in 1992 for the Rio Earth Summit there would not be the nine chapters of agenda 21 that gave rights AND responsibilities for the stakeholders we have engaged at UNEA Second, I would like to mention the enormous work of Mostafa Tolba Executive Director for nearly 20 years and whose commitment to building up UNEPs science base and starting to facilitate much of what we now see as the Multilateral Environmental Agreements landscape. Particularly his work around Montreal Protocol. But also, the work on climate change. It was first mentioned in the Stockholm Conference outcome. Under Mostafa’...