Katrin Schneeberger, Director, Federal Office for the Environment & State Secretary for the Environment, Switzerland,
UN colleagues and heads of international agencies,
Ambassadors,
Distinguished guests,
Partners and friends—members of the Geneva environmental community.
Firstly, my huge thanks to Geneva, to Switzerland and to every member of the Geneva Environment Network, or GEN, for their powerful contributions to environmental action down the years. You are—individually and collectively—voices in a global chorus that has sought to raise, and to a large extent succeeded in raising, the profile and visibility of the imperative of environmental action and stewardship.
Geneva is where UNEP has its second-largest presence, making the city an important complement to Nairobi – which is UNEP’s home and the global capital for environmental diplomacy. And here at International Environment House, which we view as UNEP’s home away from home in Geneva, is where, 25 years ago, two of our predecessors, Klaus Töpfer and Philippe Roch, established the GEN and Environment House.
My deep thanks to Switzerland for years of support to UNEP employees and their families. And of course, for the support to UNEP’s budget and projects. Also my deep thanks to Switzerland for thought leadership, for active engagement in UNEP governance and for proactive help and support when complexity hits our collective shores. We remain deeply grateful and are proud to know that we have a steady and reliable friend in Switzerland. My thanks also to the amazing UNEP team here in Geneva. Together, the Geneva community has been pivotal to some of UNEP’s greatest successes.
Friends,
GEN has been an important amplifying force for action – fostering cooperation between UN agencies, Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), international organizations, forums, federations and non-governmental organizations.
I look forward to seeing the presentations at this forum showing how the GEN community is advancing action on the triple planetary crisis – the crisis of climate change; the crisis of nature, land and biodiversity loss; and the crisis of pollution and waste.
The issues you are working on, and presenting today, are hugely important. Beating plastic pollution. Fulfilling the human right to a healthy environment. Strengthening a One Health approach to human, animal, plant and planetary health. Using trade as a force for good. Lining up humanitarian and environmental action. And more.
These are all threads that we must weave into a single tapestry of action across mandates, agencies and geographies. Because the triple planetary crisis is one crisis. Because action on the triple planetary crisis is action on human health, prosperity, equity and peace. And because the triple planetary crisis, despite all our efforts, is intensifying.
To weave this tapestry, we must unite. And to unite, we must work to overcome the fragmentation of the environmental movement that has taken place over the last 50 or so years. I am, of course, deeply grateful to the gracious hosts of members of the UNEP and environmental MEA family and to the many others working in this space. This separation across time and space has brought richness, but also its fair share of complexity. So, this is why working on environmental policy coherence and synergies is so important. Because it is when we reach for synergistic coherence that we are the strongest.
This is why, at the last UN Environment Assembly (UNEA), UNEP held the first-ever MEA day, focused on bringing together the two dozen-plus agreements, regional conventions and scientific panels that UNEP hosts and administers. UNEP will hold another such day at the next UNEA at the end of this year.
I invite you all to attend the assembly and help us find coherence across all MEAs, across agencies, across nations and across partners. And as you engage in the forum today, I ask you to do so with an eye on how GEN, its members, UNEP, Geneva and Switzerland—as well as Bonn, Montreal and beyond—can work better, faster and harder together on common challenges.
We are, after all, a family. And as a family, we must build a future that works for everyone, everywhere, on a healthy planet.
