A new Global Environmental Authority (or Global Environmental Agency) is now a necessary prerequisite for planetary survival.

There is no longer anytime for national environmental problem solving. Global warming, the global water crisis, rapid deforestation/desertification, global overpopulation and poverty, global plague and pestilence etc.... CANNOT be solved independently, they REQUIRE international cooperation, collective agreement and shared governance.

The challenge today is to institute an international global environmental authority with the mandate and directive to bring all the world's environmental problems (and solutions) under one unbrella. This new agency must be given authoritiative powers to define and collect reliable scientific data on all aspects of the global environmental crisis, as well as administer and implement global environmental policy for all the nations of the Earth.

The establishment of this newly centralized planetary agency would be the culmination of decades of global environmental conventions, conferences, agreements, protocols and treaties, some of which include; the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden in 1972, the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Antarctica Agreement, the Basel Convention on Hazardous Wastes, the Brundtland Commission Report in 1987, the Montreal Protocols (on substances that deplete the ozone), the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janiero, Brazil in 1992 (the 1992 Earth Summit), the Global 2000 Report to the President (of the USA), the Earth Charter, Agenda 21, the Convention to Combat Desertification, the establishment of the Global Environmental Facility, the Kyoto Protocols (on global greenhouse gase emissions), the 2002 Earth Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa etc, etc...

The global environmental problems of today are as diverse as they are serious. Following the rapid expansion of human industrial activity these past 2 centuries, these problems have grown into very real threats to the Earth's future security and survival. The consumption of vast quantities of fossil fuels have led to global warming and massive environmental pollution. The rapid increase, exploitation and consumption of the Earth's finite natural resources such as timber, soil, land and water, combined with the increase in global poverty, hunger and disease, and exacerbated by urbanization and population growth, have ALL coalesced to create a mandate for planet management at the highest of levels. Thus, a global environmental authority would become the bell-weather or beacon around which an embroyonic system of authentic global governance can emerge.

The central challenge of our time is to institute a foundational mechanism of international cooperation. Current and emerging environmental threats facing the world are of such great magnitude and so universal in nature that no country, or group of countries, can hope to tackle them alone. Collaberation between nations driven by creative and innovative management of global affairs in the area of environmental mediation and security, is the only conceivable solution that will work for everyone.

A new economic/environmental paradigm of international sustainable development is in the offering for the immediate remaking and restructuring of our civilization. The establishment of a new global environmental authority will help accomplish this desperately needed task by provided the context and the drive that will define both Earth security and planetary survival as the central organizing principles of our time.

I propose that this new institution be based in Brussels, Belgium, the administrative capital of the European Union, and housed in the building that is now occupied by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

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Steve Jones
Makawao, Maui
State of Hawaii
USA

E-Mail: seraphim4499@yahoo.com

SOURCES:

1. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
United Nations Ave, Gigiri
P.O. Box 30552
Nairobi, Kenya
AFRICA
Website: http://www.unep.org

2. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Ariel Rios Buildiing
1200 Pennsylvannia Ave- NW
Washington, DC 20460
USA
National Website: http://www.epa.gov
International Website: http://www.epa.gov/international

3. European Environment Agency (EEA)
Kongens Nytorv 6
Dk-1050, Copenhagen K
Denmark
EUROPEAN UNION
Website: http://www.eea.eu.int

4. International Green Movement
Website: http://www.oocities.org/dreadzoneone7/greens.html

5. Earth Summit 2002
Website: http://www.oocities.org/lionofjudah2021/earth.html

6. Information Highway to the Global Environment
Website: http://www.gsf.de/UNEP/contents.html

7. Greenpeace International
Ottho Heldringstraat 5
1066 AZ Amsterdam
Netherlands
EUROPEAN UNION
Website: http://www.greenpeace.org

8. Strategic Environment Initiative (SEI)/Mission to Planet Earth
Website: http://www.oocities.org/sapphire2029/sei.html

9. United Kingdom Environment Agency
Website: http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk

10. Ministry of the Environment/ JAPAN
No.5 Godochosha
1-2-2 Kasumigaseki
Chiyoda-Ku, Tokyo 100-8975
JAPAN
Website: http://www.env.go.jp/en

11. State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA)
115 Xizhimennei Nanxiaojie
Beijing, 100035
Peoples Republic of CHINA
Website: http://www.ihe.org/sepa.html

12. Ministry of Environment and Forests
Paryavaran Bhavan
CGO Complex, Lodhi Rd
New Delhi, 110003
INDIA
Website: http://envfor.nic.in

13. Environmental Web Site Linx
Website: http://www.zhb.gov.cn/english/link/index.php3

14. The Resource Wars
Website: http://www.oocities.org/chandra7773

15. Global Environmental Outlook
Website: http://geo.unep-wcmc.org/focalpoints.htm

16. Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)
P.O. Box 53343
Washington, DC 20009 USA
and
62/63 Upper Street
London, United Kingdom N1 ONY
EUROPEAN UNION
Website: http://www.eia-international.org

17. Environmental News Service
350 Ward Ave- Suite 106-165
Honolulu, Hawaii 96814
USA
Website: http://www.ens-newswire.com

18. Agenda 21
Division of Sustainable Development
Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Two United Nations Plaza, Rm DC2-2220
New York, New York 10017
USA
Website: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21

19. European Commission
Environment Directorate-General
200, Rue de la Loi
Brussels B-1049, Belgium
EUROPEAN UNION
Website: http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment

20. Stockholm Environment Institute
Lilla Nygatan 1
Box 2142, S-103
Stockholm
SWEDEN
Website: http://www.sei.se

21. Environmental Agencies Worldwide
Website: http://www.worldbank.org/nipr/epas.htm

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