The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is a global Programme and institution within the UN System, serving as the leading global authority on the environment. It was established on 5 June 1972, following the landmark UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden. The organization was created to address the urgent need for collective action against expanding pollution and to coordinate global environmental efforts. UNEP's mandate is to provide leadership, deliver science, and develop solutions for the "triple planetary crisis": the crisis of climate change, the crisis of nature and biodiversity loss, and the crisis of pollution and waste.
The mechanism of UNEP involves developing international environmental agreements, publishing environmental science, and helping national governments achieve environmental targets. It is governed by the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), which was established in 2012 at the Rio+20 Conference, replacing the former Governing Council and granting universal membership to all 193 UN Member States. UNEA acts as the world's highest-level decision-making body on the environment.
UNEP connects to a wide range of global environmental governance structures, as it hosts the secretariats for key Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Montreal Protocol. It also co-established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with the World Meteorological Organization in 1988. A recent change saw the organization referred to as UN Environment from 2017 to 2020. The current Medium-Term Strategy (MTS) for 2026–2029 focuses on an integrated delivery model for climate action, nature action, and chemicals/pollution action to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).