Achim Steiner
Achim Steiner is UN Under-Secretary General and UN Environment Program (UNEP) Executive Director.
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2011-11-08
| Human interference with the environment has had a devastating impact on many migratory species. While nature should never be prized merely for its economic value, in a world of competing demands and limited resources, economic considerations can help tip decisions in favor of conservation.... read |
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2011-06-16
| According to the UN, 85% of the world's fish stocks are fully exploited or worse – the highest levels ever recorded. Fisheries depletion reveals how the international community is failing to meet one of the most important commitments that came out of the 1992 Earth Summit – and what it must address at next year's "Rio+20" conference.... read |
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2011-05-09
| The new report by the UN climate-change panel takes a clear stand in favor of sparking a global renewable-energy revolution. The opportunities – containing the global temperature rise this century while generating decent employment in clean-tech industries for millions of people – far outweigh the challenges.... read |
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2011-02-17
| Many people may wonder whether the Green Economy is just pleasing jargon or a genuinely new pathway to a low-carbon, resource-efficient, and sustainable twenty-first century. The answer can be found in some of the extraordinary transitions taking place in the electricity and energy sectors around the world.... read |
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2011-01-05
| The last two years have been a hard slog for efforts to agree on a new global treaty to combat climate change. But, at the same time, the world has been witnessing an extraordinary mobilization of national-level projects and policies that are shifting economies onto a low-carbon path.... read |
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2010-09-02
| Biodiversity is essential for the functioning of the ecosystems that sustain all life on Earth, and its ongoing and escalating disappearance will harm society in myriad ways. But one way that is overlooked is the damaging impact on medical science.... read |
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2010-06-25
| The G-20 summit in Toronto is a chance for a long, hard look at how green investments are assisting economic recovery and job growth in many countries, while generating environmental gains as well, including on climate change. Leaders should re-affirm their recognition of the Green Economy’s power to create a fundamentally different development path for all countries.... read |
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2010-06-02
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| A recent meeting in Doha of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species underscored the threat to many economically and ecologically important marine species. Unfortunately, whether these species avoid extinction still depends on organizations that have presided over a breathtaking collapse of fish stocks.... read |
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2010-02-05
| The science of climate change has been on the defensive in recent weeks, owing to an error that dramatically overstated the rate at which the Himalayan glaciers could disappear. With some strident voices even dismissing climate change as a hoax on a par with the Y2K computer bug, the time has come for a reality check.... read |
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Why Cutting Carbon Emissions is not Enough
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Achim Steiner 
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Twenty years ago, governments adopted the Montreal Protocol, a treaty to protect the Earth’s ozone layer from emissions of destructive chemicals. Not only has the protocol proven highly effective, but it has also spared humanity a significant level of climate change, because the gases that it prohibits also contribute to global warming.... read
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2009-02-03
| With unemployment soaring, bankruptcies climbing, and stock markets in free-fall, it may at first glance seem sensible to ditch the fight against climate change and put environmental investments on hold. But this would be a devastating mistake of immediate, as well as inter-generational, proportions.... read |
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2009-09-10
| Twenty years ago, governments adopted the Montreal Protocol, a treaty to protect the Earth’s ozone layer from emissions of destructive chemicals. Not only has the protocol proven highly effective, but it has also spared humanity a significant level of climate change, because the gases that it prohibits also contribute to global warming.... read |
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2008-02-14
| Recent trends point to the enormous employment potential of combating climate change is enormous. One reason is that industry and organized labor no longer view environmental regulation with suspicion and concern, but as a source of profits and jobs.... read |
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2010-09-02
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| Biodiversity is essential for the functioning of the ecosystems that sustain all life on Earth, and its ongoing and escalating disappearance will harm society in myriad ways. But one way that is overlooked is the damaging impact on medical science.... read |
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2008-05-22
| The Convention on Biological Diversity, signed in 1992, promised an international regime on access and benefit sharing of the world's genetic resources. But those resources have been dwindling at an alarming rate ever since, because the world has failed to translate international agreements into legislation and action at the national and regional levels.... read |
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2008-08-05
| Images of the Beijing skyline seemingly bathed in a soup of smog and haze have been a common sight on the world’s TV screens in recent days and weeks. But real and, one hopes, long-lasting environmental achievements have been made by the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, the city as a whole, the government, and the six provinces concerned.... read |
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2011-01-05
| The last two years have been a hard slog for efforts to agree on a new global treaty to combat climate change. But, at the same time, the world has been witnessing an extraordinary mobilization of national-level projects and policies that are shifting economies onto a low-carbon path.... read |
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2010-02-05
| The science of climate change has been on the defensive in recent weeks, owing to an error that dramatically overstated the rate at which the Himalayan glaciers could disappear. With some strident voices even dismissing climate change as a hoax on a par with the Y2K computer bug, the time has come for a reality check.... read |
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2011-05-09
| The new report by the UN climate-change panel takes a clear stand in favor of sparking a global renewable-energy revolution. The opportunities – containing the global temperature rise this century while generating decent employment in clean-tech industries for millions of people – far outweigh the challenges.... read |
