Inaugural session of United Nations Environment Assembly opens in Nairobi

UNEA is the newly constituted UN high-level platform for decision making on environment, which is tasked with charting a new course in the way the international community addresses environmental sustainability challenges.
UNEA will be attended by over 1,200 participants from government, business and civil society, as well as high-level delegations from over 160 UN Member and Observer States. More than 80 Ministers, Vice-Ministers and Secretaries of State, as well as heads of international convention secretariats, will influence policy action on environmental themes, ranging from sustainable consumption and production, and financing the green economy, to the illegal trade in wildlife, and environmental rule of law.
The UNEP Yearbook 2014, a 10-year review of critical environmental issues, and Valuing Plastics, a report looking at the economic damage of plastic waste, will be launched on the opening day.
The reports draw particular attention to plastic contamination, which threatens marine life, tourism and fisheries, on a multi-billion dollar scale. Other topics covered in the Year Book include the environmental impacts of excess nitrogen and marine aquaculture, air pollution’s deadly toll and the potential of citizen science.