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A 'World Environment Organization', similar to the
World Trade Organization, could be formed as part of environmental
governance reform, according to a meeting of environment ministers
decided.
Ministers and officials from more than 135 nations converged
on Nusa Dua, on the Indonesian island of Bali, for the United
Nations Environment Program (UNEP) annual meeting - the biggest
grouping of environment officials since climate talks in Copenhagen
last year.
UNEP's executive director, Achim Steiner, told reporters
that environmental governance reform was a key part of the
meeting's discussions and that governments had raised the
possibility of a 'World Environment Organization (WEO)'.
"The status quo ... is no longer
an option. Within the broader reform options, the WEO concept
is one of them," he said. "Governments established a high-level
ministerial group to continue this process with greater focus
and also urgency. That group will convene within a few months."
Steiner said that the WEO could be modelled on the World
Trade Organization, but was unable to say if it would have
similar power to sanction countries that breach international
law.
For the first time in a decade, the UNEP meeting released
a formal declaration setting out a series of policies.
Among other things, the Nusa
Dua Declaration called for the world body to help
ensure quake-struck Haiti was rebuilt in an environmentally
friendly manner and that recommendations from a previous report
on environmental and infrastructure damage in the Gaza strip
be implemented.
The Declaration also called for governments to meet again
in June this year to decide if they should create a new international
panel of scientists dedicated to biodiversity, modelLed on
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Steiner said the meeting showed a global willingness to move
on from the Copenhagen talks, which fell short of expectations
and ended with a non-binding agreement to fight climate change.
"I think here, in Bali, so little time after Copenhagen and
that great frustration, the ministers responsible for the
environment have found their collective voice again," he said.
"That is something that the world should be very pleased with."
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