UNEP Open-Ended CPR 2014: NGO Closing Statement

Thank you Chair for giving me the floor. I will be brief. The NGO major group is looking forward to UNEA as a watershed moment when the international community as a whole will place its eyes on UNEP to lead on environmental issues. For decades, many have considered the environment as a backwater of international policy-making. UNEA fundamentally transforms this reality. After decades of debate, we now recognize the environment as the infrastructure of human society and the basis for a life of dignity. We now recognize the earth as our shared, single home, and we further recognize our responsibility to the totality of life in an inter-temporal dimension.