Coming Soon: An 'International Environmental Organization'?

As the Copenhagen climate conference staggers toward the finish line of a star-studded plenary of political leaders on Friday, a number of influential countries — including France and Britain — have been calling for the creation of a new, global regulator to act as the world's environmental steward, equipped with still unspecified powers. Similar discussions, it appears, have also been taking place for several months inside the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the world's current environmental watchdog. According to documents obtained by Fox News, a high-level group of dignitaries from 38 countries, including a bevy of environment ministers and other top environmental bureaucrats, held their first meeting under UNEP auspices last June in the Serbian capital of Belgrade to begin hammering out details of the task of "improving international environmental governance." The group's plan, according to an elaborate timetable presented at the meeting, was to present its ultimate conclusions on the topic at a meeting of UNEP's supervisory Governing Council, along with a tandem meeting of the world's environmental ministers, entitled the Global Ministerial Environment Forum, in Indonesia next February. Just how far, and how fast, UNEP hoped to go with its expansive thinking is unclear from the documents obtained by Fox News...read more