News

CEO Naoko Ishii opens historic GEF Council

Humanity may be facing its “last chance” to save the Earth's natural environment and its own prosperity, Naoko Ishii, the CEO and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) told governments today.

She told the GEF's 56^th Council meeting, in Washington DC, that challenges were “becoming bigger and bigger”, but that the world's ability to address them was “also becoming stronger”, presenting “an historic opportunity to come together to make a difference”.

Over 120 representatives from civil society, government, and the private sector convened at the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Consultations with Civil Society to discuss how to address plastic pollution based on a circular economy approach.

Over the last two years pollution by plastics has caught the attention, and sparked the concern, of the world. What was for long seen as a marginal, local, and largely aesthetic issue – even by some environmentalists – is now established to be one of our greatest challenges.

It is increasingly recognised as one of the prime symbols of the world's throwaway 'linear' economy and of the need to replace it with a regenerative 'circular' one, through systems – rather than piecemeal - change.

New impact programs at heart of largest-ever proposed work program

Delegates are arriving in Washington DC for one of the most important Council meetings in the history of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It is expected to mark a pioneering shift of emphasis for the organization that was established on the eve of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to help tackle our planet’s most pressing environmental problems.

New international network aims to transform economic systems for the benefit of society and to sustain the natural systems of Earth

SINGAPORE, June 6, 2019 – All life on Earth depends on clean air and water, biodiversity, healthy land and oceans, and a stable climate. These are the global commons: the shared resources that ensure a habitable planet upon which we can all thrive.

Experts from donor and recipient countries met last week to share information about progress in meeting their Paris Climate Agreement commitments. The third annual Global Coordination Meeting and Technical Workshop gathered participants in the Capacity-building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) on May 21-23 in Rome, Italy. 

GEF-supported Good Growth Conference takes place in Peru, May 13-17, 2019

Peru has strengthened its credentials as one of Latin America’s most sustainable countries by becoming the first nation to host the GEF supported, UNDP-led Good Growth Conference, which started in Lima on Monday (13^th) and continued into the Amazon this week.

Naoko Ishii, Monday May 6, 2019

The new report from the Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES, sends a crystal-clear message about life on Earth, and what we stand to lose if we don’t act now.

The report paints an alarming picture of species extinctions, wildlife population declines, habitat loss and depletion of ecosystem services − adding to the existing wealth of evidence that we are degrading our global commons at a dramatic and unsustainable rate.

The 2019 Meetings of the Conferences of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions take place in Geneva, Switzerland from April 29 to May 10.

In biodiversity-rich Madagascar, which is also one of the poorest countries in the world, an inclusive country-driven dialogue sets the stage for a strong commitment to environmental protection and transformational change.