June 29, 2009: UNEP Executive Directors Panel

This afternoon, for the first time in history, all five former and present Executive Directors of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) were convened in the same room, sitting on the same panel. The aisles of the conference room were almost instantly crowded with Forum participants taking photos of the occasion; five minutes were added into the schedule this morning for those who wanted to preserve a way to prove that they were present for this occasion.  Filmed by both the BBC and devTv and moderated by Gus Speth, the panel was certainly a great occasion for which to be present.  The individuals embodying the entire history (and present) of the UN Environment Programme, and therefore a large part of the history of the global environmental governance system, were seated together at the front of the room.  Having discussed the panel with a number of those in attendance, it seems that the discussions of today’s panel were not as deep as perhaps was expected.  Relatively little was said about the more far-reaching reforms of the GEG system that many deem necessary. Still, all of the Directors engaged in a wide-ranging conversation about UNEP’s past, its comparative advantages and disadvantages, and the future of global environmental governance in the face of the primacy of economics in global decision-making.

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