A World Environment Organization, similar to the World Trade Organization, could be one result of a recent conference on environmental governance reform. Ministers and officials from more than 135 nations met in Bali , Indonesia , the week of Feb. 22 for the U.N. Environment Program annual meeting, the biggest grouping of environment officials since climate talks in Copenhagen last year.
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner told reporters that environmental governance reform was a key part of last week's discussions and that governments had raised the possibility of a World Environment Organization.
"The status quo ... is no longer an option. Within the broader reform options, the WEO concept is one of them," he said. Steiner said earlier that the WEO could be modeled on the WTO, but was unable to say if it would have similar power to sanction countries that breach international law.
During the meeting, the UNEP released for the first time in a decade a formal declaration setting out a series of policies. Among other things, it 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, modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
