Looking Back, Looking Forward: A Decade in UNEP Under Achim Steiner’s Leadership

Quotes

Mr Steiner said one of his main challenges over his coming first term as UNEP Executive Director was to end this “antagonism between economic and environmental policy”. Achim Steiner | 2006

« The challenges are so immense that, only by working together in mutual self interest, can we realize internationally agreed goals and deliver a stable, just and healthy planet for this and future generations. » Achim Steiner | 2006

« The question is why, in the year 2007 is the portfolio of environment all too often regarded as the least influential and the least powerful? Why is this the case when the whole world right now is looking at environmental issues as among the most dramatic challenges to our future on this planet? » Achim Steiner, UNEP Governing Council | 2007

« But as we meet in 2007, we know that the work is not over-many existing threats persist and new challenges are unfolding. » Achim Steiner, CITES COP | 2007

« We live in exciting time full of challenges but also opportunities. » Achim Steiner, CITES COP | 2007

« So the IPCC remind us that we have challenges but we also have choices. It is time to make those. » Achim Steiner | 2008

« Indeed in a world of multiple challenges and indeed crises—fuel, food and economic up to climate change and the emerging one of natural resource scarcity—joined up thinking, creative market mechanisms and integrated approaches are urgently needed. » Achim Steiner | 2009

« The challenges are legion, but so are the opportunities. » Achim Steiner | 2010

« In 1992, we could only perhaps glimpse the scale some of the challenges emerging on the radar from climate change and the loss of healthy, productive cropland. But in the world of the here and now, many of those challenges have become all too real-there is an urgency to swiftly and decisively evolve the sustainable development agenda onto a far more focused and far reaching level. » Achim Steiner | 2011

« Indeed as we meet here in 2012 it is by far the challenges-somewhat theoretical in 1972, far more clearly glimpsed in 1992-that seem in many ways far more tangible and real than the implemented answers, options and opportunities.I refer to challenges such as mounting greenhouse gas emissions and climate change; unsustainable consumption and  over-exploitation of natural resources from fish stocks to freshwaters; persistent poverty and yawning inequality between nations and within them. » Achim Steiner | 2012

« The theft of natural resources by the few at the expense of the many is rapidly emerging as a new challenge to poverty eradication, sustainable development and a transition towards an inclusive Green Economy when one looks at the scale and breadth of these criminal activities. » Achim Steiner | Interpol-UNEP Conference | 2013

« I fully expect this to be the start of a new era. We need to raise our voices to ensure SIDS are not left behind and that the world community is prepared to face up to the challenges and opportunities ahead. » Achim Steiner | World Environment Day | 2014

« I invite you to look back and be proud of what has been achieved. We must be mindful, however, that much of the work – in terms of the synergies process and ensuring funding – has been preparation for greater challenges we need to address in time. » Achim Steiner | Basel, Rotterdam & Stockholm Conventions COP | 2015

« Bt the challenges are as diverse and dynamic as the world we share. »  Achim Steiner | Forum of Ministers of Environment of Latin America and the Caribbean | 2016

« The world has been focused on this moment for years, » Achim Steiner | 2009

« There is a moral hazard in any attempt to further delay action on climate change. Political leaders in Copenhagen will have to explain in a credible way to the 2bn-3bn people who are living on the frontline of climate change why they could not reach a deal. » Achim Steiner | 2009

« Is there any evidence that where 2009 in the end fell short, 2015 will propel the world into a new era of climate diplomacy and universal cooperation that is able to lift the threat of dangerous global warming from the lives of billions of people? The answer must be a qualified yes. Achim Steiner | 2010

« We’re seven months away from a very significant conference, in which the future path for the world will be discussed, » Achim Steiner | 2011

« Twenty years after Rio, it is a unique opportunity to take a hard look at how successful we have been on sustainable development. While a conference doesn’t change the world, it can set the trajectory for the coming years. » Achim Steiner | 2011

« We are losing valuable time, with future generations set to pay an inordinately high price to catch up. » Achim Steiner | 2011

« We used to talk about the future, but we are already in the future. In fact, we can’t even catch up with all the change that is happening environmentally to the planet.  » Achim Steiner | 2012

« One day, hopefully we will live in a world where the environment ministers are the second most important ministers after the heads of state. » Achim Steiner | 2012

« Citizens have to be able to take their own governments to account for failure to uphold commitments they have entered into. » Achim Steiner | 2012

« The convening of the first UNEA represents a coming-of-age for the global environment community. For the first time, all (193) members of the UN, plus Observer States and major stakeholders, will be represented in the new assembly – thereby bestowing upon UNEA a new level of representation, legitimacy and authority. » Achim Steiner | World Environment Day 2014

« This is the first reform since UNEP was established in 1972. » Achim Steiner | 2014

« We have undoubtedly come a long way; however, there is still much work to be done. From this point, we must focus on ensuring that the indicators for the goals and targets will be applicable and meaningful and that the environmental dimension will continue to be integrated in the final set of goals. » Achim Steiner | 2014

« In Kenya, where the United Nations Environment Programme is headquartered, there is a proverb that says: « If a dead tree falls, it carries with it a live one. » The same can be said of the 17 sustainable development goals. If any one element fails, then it could take the others with it. Without quality education we cannot tackle climate change. Without gender equality we cannot have sustainable cities. And without decent work and economic growth we cannot have zero hunger or poverty. » Achim Steiner | 2015

« Ladies and gentlemen, the 2030 Agenda is one of the greatest expeditions humanity has undertaken. But integrated policies, leading by example and encouraging the private sector will do a lot more than just chip away at that mountain we have to climb. It has to, because this is about the challenge of managing complexity against a backdrop of rapidly escalating problems.» Achim Steiner | Forum for the future of agriculture 2016

« The signed Paris Agreement is evidence of an epochal shift in global mentality toward how we interact with our environment. The challenges we face from climate change are still very real, and no document can fix our problems for us. What the Paris Agreement can do is inspire action, safe in the knowledge that we do not act alone, but with a global unity of purpose. » Achim Steiner | 2016

« A large step, yes, but many more remain to be taken in our efforts to address the risks of climate change, reduce pollution and increase access to clean energy. » Achim Steiner | 2016

Steiner acknowledged there was rising frustration at global failure to protect oceans.

« If you were a company and you had these kinds of numbers, you would have people on the stock market basically fleeing from your company because it is essentially pointing towards bankruptcy, » Achim Steiner | 2014

« UNEP will continue to integrate gender equality and equity into all its policies, programmes and projects with special attention given to the role of women in environmental policymaking, environmental management and early warning, and disaster management. UNEP’s commitment to mainstream gender equality and equity in its programmes will be extended to its work with partners and other agencies. » Achim Steiner | 2008

« Our aim is clear: to speed the transition to an inclusive sustainable economy. To do so, we need to channel trillions of dollars annually into green investment and many more trillions away from polluting and natural resource-intensive investment. Meeting this challenge, in a nutshell, requires the mobilization of large amounts of private capital, as well as a concerted effort to develop policies that promote sustainable lifestyles and sustainable consumption and production. » Achim Steiner | 2015

What would you say is the most important advice for students who are passionate about the environment, particularly those involved in environmental activism?

« Firstly, don’t let anybody talk you out of the passion that you hold because the older we grow, the more reasons we are given why things that we intuitively believe in and know to be right are somehow not realisable or are not realistic. »

« Finally, don’t start with the notion that you’re going to change the world overnight. Start the change where you’re at, be it in the canteen where you eat, the student council or governance of your university or institution, in your family or startup business. That’s where you hone your skills that you can then scale up right then to running a country if you want to in the future or big business. » Achim Steiner | 2016