Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference

Georgia is hosting the eighth Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference of the United Nations Economic Commission. The Ministerial Conference Batumi 2016 was organized by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Protection of Georgia.

In the frame of the Ministerial, Georgia is hosting approximately 600 delegates from 56 countries, ministers, representatives of the business sector, business associations and high-ranking representatives from 55 international organizations working on environmental issues.

Prime Minister of Georgia Giorgi Kvirikashvili, Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Protection of Georgia, Gigla Agulashvili, Executive Secretary of UNECE, Christian Bach, and Head of the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, Archil Khabadze, addressed conference participants.

The eighth Environment for Europe Ministerial Conference is a special format of cooperation between the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s member countries, United Nation organizations, governmental organizations, regional environmental centers, non-governmental organizations, private sector and other interested parties. Ministerial conferences are held once every 3-5 years as a high-ranking platform that facilitates discussion on environmental issues between interested parties in order to identify priorities and to plan joint activities for sustainable development.

The main topics of the conference are: Green Economics Development in the Pan-European Region, Air Quality Improvement for Better Environment, and Human Health. In the frame of the conference a high-rank meeting will be held on the topic of Education for Sustainable Development.

Countries and stakeholders from the pan-European region have already agreed on a roadmap to speed up the transition to a Green Economy between now and 2030 and have begun to make an array of pledges translating this into action, reports unece.org. The Batumi Initiative on Green Economy (BIG-E) was also launched today, made up of voluntary actions from more than twenty countries. “We are pleased to see so many concrete pledges coming directly from ministers, to put the Green Economy transition in motion in our region,” said Jan Dusik, Head of UNEP’s Regional Office for Europe.

The first Ministerial Conference Environment for Europe, initiated by the Ministry of Environment Protection of the Czech Republic, was held in 1991 in Dobris. Since then, seven ministerial conferences have been held in Lucerne (Switzerland, 1993), Sofia (Bulgaria, 1995), Aarhus (Denmark, 1998), Kiev (Ukraine, 2003), Belgrade (Serbia, 2007) and Astana (Kazakhstan, 2011).

Katie Ruth Davies