2026: Global Environment in Peril: A Look Ahead on the Role of the UN

A revised version of this working paper has been published as: Biermann, Frank. 2012. Greening the United Nations Charter: World Politics in the Anthropocene. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development. May / June 2012. A constitutional turn is needed to bring the UN system in line with the urgent needs of planetary stewardship and earth system governance in the 21st century. Yet how this could be organized in practice remains a challenge and subject to political and scholarly debate. This paper contributes to this debate by outlining four reforms of the UN system that would advance global decision-making by addressing major shortcomings in the current system: Lack of integration of economic and environmental policies in the UN system; institutional fragmentation and weakness of the environmental pillar of sustainable development; lack of high-level regulatory competence and oversight regarding areas beyond national jurisdiction; and insufficient integration of scientific insights into political decision-making. The reforms proposed would together create an Earth Alliance in the UN system, consisting of a high-level UN Sustainable Development Council, a World Environment Organization, a UN Trusteeship Council for Areas beyond National Jurisdiction, and an UN Global Environmental Assessment Commission.

Based on the current state of global subjective well-being and global sustainable development, this paper studies the impact of sustainable development, proposed in 1987 and pursued globally, on the subjective well-being of people worldwide from the post-World War II and Industrial Revolution period to the 21st century. This paper primarily employs methods of literature review consolidation and tabular data analysis to summarize the research findings produced by existing researchers. The following studies were conducted: summarizing and synthesizing the definitions and concepts of well-being and subjective well-being, and analyzing and summarizing the influencing factors of subjective well-being; summarizing and synthesizing the definition and concept of sustainable development, and classifying the 17 Sustainable Development Goals designated by the United Nations; and subsequently, studying the impact of economic sustainable development, environmental sustainable development, and social sustainable development on global subjective well-being. Thereby, prospects for future sustainable development and predictions of well-being trends are proposed, concluding that, thanks to global economic, environmental, and social sustainable development, global multidimensional subjective well-being is generally on an upward trend. We should further strive towards the common goal of global sustainable development to continuously enhance the subjective well-being of people worldwide. Finally, directions for future development aimed at enhancing people's subjective well-being and advocating for further sustainable development are suggested.

Reviving the United Nations Trusteeship Council (UNTC) and the evolution of the idea of trust in the global domain underscores that there are places, territories, and areas known as ‘global commons’ that require special and careful nurturing. The TC under the UN Charter sought to continue the spirit and essence of the ‘sacred trust’ with a ‘new mandate,’ even as it now lies dormant since 1994. From a scholarly perspective, such a move eminently makes sense since it could bring to life an entity within the UN. It will essentially serve as a guardian of the global ‘common concerns’ and ‘common heritage of mankind’ as well as the global environment. It would serve as a trustee for the present and future generations of humankind. A revived TC with a new mandate (for the environment and the global commons) could strengthen the UN and vindicate one of the core purposes for which the ‘United Nations’ came together (in 1945) with a solemn resolve “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”

Reviving the United Nations Trusteeship Council (UNTC) and the evolution of the idea of trust in the global domain underscores that there are places, territories, and areas known as ‘global commons’ that require special and careful nurturing. The TC under the UN Charter sought to continue the spirit and essence of the ‘sacred trust’ with a ‘new mandate,’ even as it now lies dormant since 1994. From a scholarly perspective, such a move eminently makes sense since it could bring to life an entity within the UN. It will essentially serve as a guardian of the global ‘common concerns’ and ‘common heritage of mankind’ as well as the global environment. It would serve as a trustee for the present and future generations of humankind. A revived TC with a new mandate (for the environment and the global commons) could strengthen the UN and vindicate one of the core purposes for which the ‘United Nations’ came together (in 1945) with a solemn resolve “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”

2021年2月18日，联合国环境署发布《与自然和谐共处：应对气候、生物多样性和污染危机的科学蓝图》。报告指出：气候变化、生物多样性下降和环境污染已经成为全球三大环境紧急情况；人与自然关系面临着社会经济发展压力加剧环境风险、遏制环境恶化的全球承诺尚未兑现、环境风险威胁可持续发展目标等多重挑战；全球亟需开展以联合国可持续发展目标为框架的系统变革，加快应对全球环境危机的重点行动，改革资源环境和经济系统，提高粮食、能源和水系统的环境友好性与可持续性，加强对人体健康与生态环境健康的协同保护，进而推动人与自然的和谐共处以及可持续发展。该报告结合全球环境评估的最新进展，强调了社会-经济-环境可持续发展仍是未来的重要研究课题，对我国社会-生态系统与可持续发展等领域的科学研究有如下启示：（1）创新社会-生态系统的综合集成研究，探寻不同发展路径和气候变化情景下社会-生态系统时空演变特征与趋势；（2）注重科学研究对决策的支撑以及与国际重大议程的衔接，探索和创新可持续发展的中国方案。;On 18 February, 2021, the United Nations Environment Programme released “Making Peace with Nature: A Scientific Blueprint to Tackle the Climate, Biodiversity and Pollution Emergencies”. The report points out that: 1) climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution have become the three global environmental emergencies; 2) The relationship between human beings and nature faces multiple challenges, such as social and economic development pressures exacerbating environmental risks, unfulfilled global commitments to curb environmental degradation, and environmental risks threatening sustainable development goals; 3) We should carry out the reform based on the sustainable development goals, speed up the response to the global environment crisis, optimize resource environment and economic system, improve the environmental friendliness and sustainability of food-energy-water system, protect human health and the earth’s health coordinately, thus promote the harmonious coexistence and sustainable development of human-nature system. Combining with the latest progress of global environmental assessment, the report emphasizes that socio-economic and environmental sustainable development is still an important research topic in the future, and has the following implications for scientific research in the fields of socio-ecological system and sustainable development in China: 1) Innovating the integrated research of socio-ecological systems and exploring their spatiotemporal evolution characteristics under different development paths and climate change scenarios. 2) Focusing on the support of scientific research for policy-making and its linkage with major international agendas, and exploring and innovating China’s solutions for sustainable development.

Book Review: The Global Environment: Institutions, Law, and Policy

The essential requirement for sustainable development is to meet the needs of contemporary people, but not to damage the ability development that satisfies the requirements of future generations. The realization of quantitative evaluation lays the foundation for implementing the strategy of sustainable development. The sustainable development evaluation system for water tourism can be divided into five subsystems, namely, sustainable economic development, sustainable social development, sustainable environmental development,sustainable management development, and development conditions and potentials. Composed of 28 index factors, this evaluation system measures index weight coefficients by using AHP with the support of entropy technology. By conducting an empirical study on three typical water tourism destinations(National Water Conservancy Scenic Spots) in Nanjing, this study indicates the sustainable development level rankings of the three destinations, that is, Taurus Lake(0.896), Pearl Spring(0.883) and Outer Qinhuai River(0.796) respectively. The Jinniu Lake is particularly outstanding with respect to the environment, while the Pearl Spring ranks first in other aspects. The Outer Qinhuai River is superior to others in terms of development conditions and potential, however, it is inferior to others in the remaining aspects. Aiming at specific evaluation data, this paper proposes policy recommendations for the three destinations with regard to sustainable development requiring urgent improvement.

Modern society needs a constructive person who is able to learn about the world around through activity, to realize potential, to show initiative and creative approaches to solving pressing problems. Formation of ideas about sustainable development in children at the stage of preschool education will not only lay the foundations for respect for the environment, but also form the ability to live in a sustainable world in harmony with society, nature and oneself. Sustainable development is understood as a process that includes three components: social, economic and environmental. The purpose of the study is to test the hypothesis that digital technologies, namely the development of projects in the algorithmic language Scratch, will allow children to form ideas about sustainable environmental development. The research methods were a conversation with preschool children on the subject of sustainable environmental development, the study of theoretical and practical material in the authors’ studies on the problem of sustainable development, as well as an experiment applying the methods by O.A. Solomennikova “The World of Animals and Birds” and “The Plant World”; by A. I. Ivanova “Describe the picture”. After the formative stage of experimental work, taking into account the use of digital programming technology in the Scratch program, diagnostics were carried out that showed signifi cant increase in the level of children’s ideas about sustainable environmental development. Thus, a high level was detected in % of older preschoolers (%), an average level was detected in % of older preschoolers (%), a low level was detected in % of older preschoolers of the group (%). Thus, we can conclude that the use of the Scratch digital tool can achieve the desired effect in terms of shaping the sustainable environmental development of preschool children.

Досліджено нормативно-правовий та інституційно-адміністративний механізм державного управління сталим розвитком аграрного сектору та сільських територій. Проаналізовано міжнародний досвід запровадження принципів сталого розвитку. На основі проведеного аналізу запропоновано алгоритм запровадження основ концепції сталого розвитку України, а саме: прийняття національної стратегії сталого розвитку “Україна – 2030”, відповідно до Глобальних цілей сталого розвитку (далі – ЦСР), прийнятих Генеральною Асамблеєю Організації Об’єднаних Націй (далі – ООН) 25 вересня 2015 р. “Перетворення нашого світу: Порядок денний сталого розвитку 2030”, який вміщує 17 Глобальних ЦСР до 2030 р.; Указу Президента України “Цілі сталого розвитку України на період до 2030 року” від 30.09.2019 р. Зазначено, що в рамках національної стратегії повинна бути розроблена програма сталого розвитку аграрного сектору та сільських територій. Адже для досягнення 2-ї Цілі “Подолання голоду, досягнення продовольчої безпеки, поліпшення харчування та сприяння сталому сільському господарству” саме аграрний сектор та сільські громади мають вирішальну роль. Запропоновано удосконалення адміністративно-інституціонального механізму управління сталим розвитком, а саме створення державного комітету із сталого розвитку, підпорядкованого Кабінету Міністрів України, для здійснення координаційної діяльності всіх міністерств та відомств у напрямку запровадження стратегії сталого розвитку. Розглянуто методи побудови механізмів державного управління сталим розвитком, які враховують інтереси усіх зацікавлених сторін, базуються на моделі “державно-приватного” партнерства, а також методах горизонтальної та вертикальної інтеграції, враховуючи альтернативи розвитку держави, специфіку аграрного сектору економіки, потреб сільських територіальних громад у напрямку досягнення ЦСР.

Summary This article will evaluate the question of the persisting relevance of the Uniting for Peace resolution (General Assembly resolution 377 A (V) (3 November 1950)) (henceforth U4P) to facilitating the United Nations’ role in the maintenance of international peace and security and responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, February 2022. The United Nations’ principal organ tasked with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security is the United Nations Security Council. Where the Security is unable to fulfil this responsibility due to the exercise of the veto by one of its permanent members it may have recourse to the U4P resolution. In effect U4P enables the Security Council to side-step the restriction of the veto and, through a procedural mechanism, refer the matter to the General Assembly to convene an Emergency Special Session for its consideration. Alternatively, the General Assembly can initiate the procedure under the U4P resolution where the Security Council fails to take action. The Security Council’s utilisation of the U4P procedure in Security Council resolution 2623 (2022) in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was only the eighth occasion since U4P’s conception in 1950 by the General Assembly. Moreover, the last time the SC resorted to U4P was in 1982. The General Assembly has invoked U4P on at least four occasions since 1997. Under U4P the General Assembly has the power to recommend measures that can be taken for the purposes of the maintenance of international peace and security. However, the power of recommendation that the General Assembly can exercise under U4P are powers derived from the United Nation’s Charter and not from the U4P resolution. Other than introducing the concept of ‘emergency special sessions’, the U4P resolution does not establish a procedural mechanism not already provided for in the UN Charter. Therefore, in responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the General Assembly has the power to make recommendations with or without reference to the U4P resolution. In this article it will be argued that U4P does not give the General Assembly powers it does not already have under the Charter. It is clear from Resolution 377A (V) that a key premise for the resort to U4P is to empower the General Assembly to take ‘collective measures’ for the maintenance of international peace and security in lieu of the Security Council being able to do so due to the casting of the veto by one of the permanent members. However, U4P is not an independent source of the Assembly’s powers, it is merely an aspect of its practice and the General Assembly has the power to make such a recommendation for ‘collective measures’ in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by virtue of the UN Charter, with or without reference to the U4P resolution.

This research examines the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on efforts to resolve the humanitarian crisis. His focus includes Russia's use of the veto in the UN Security Council, the humanitarian impact, and the role of the UN. Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea was the start of the conflict, with Russia's veto hampering the UN response. Conflicts that result in humanitarian crises, massive displacement, human rights violations and loss of life. This research also explores the UN's role in mediation, dealing with political obstacles and tensions on the ground. Through analysis of previous literature and research, this research seeks a deeper understanding of the dynamics of this conflict and the role of international institutions in overcoming the crisis. Its findings illustrate that Russia's veto hinders decisive action by the UN, while the humanitarian crisis and political tensions complicate the UN's mediation role. This research contributes to understanding the impact of international conflict and the challenges international institutions face in maintaining peace and dealing with humanitarian crises.

Chukhnii O.Yu., Lutsiv R.S. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF GREEN TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENTS IN MEGA-REGIONS: THE CASES OF THE UNITED STATES, EUROPE, AND PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA Purpose. This article aims to provide a comparative analysis of green technology investments across prominent mega-regions in the United States, Europe, and China by examining the scale, sectoral focus, and underlying drivers of these investments, highlighting the similarities and differences in their approaches to fostering a more sustainable urban future. Methodology of research. General scientific and specialized methods were used during the study. Inductive and deductive reasoning guided the collection and processing of data. The comparative method enabled analysis of the scale, structure, and dynamics of green technology investments in major mega-regions of the U.S., Europe and China. Content analysis was used to examine strategic documents and reports, while statistical analysis assessed indicators such as investment volumes and public and private funding ratios. Case studies of key regions (e.g., Greater Bay Area, Northeastern Corridor, and Blue Banana) offered deeper insights. A systematic literature review synthesized existing research on green transitions and sustainable urban development. Findings. It has been established that investments in green technologies in the United States, Europe, and China share common strategic priorities, particularly the development of renewable energy, electric transport, and sustainable urban environments. It has been substantiated that key differences lie in the scale of investment, institutional structures, and governance mechanisms: China demonstrates a centralized model, the U.S. a decentralized one, and the EU relies on multi-level coordination through European Union policy. It has been proven that China currently leads in terms of funding volume, driven by national priorities for “green” economic growth and strict state regulation. The analysis shows that the U.S. is dominated by a market model focused on private investment, state-level initiatives, and technological innovation, whereas Europe aims for global leadership through coordinated environmental policies and financial instruments. It has been identified that public support and institutional interaction remain decisive success factors, although their influence varies significantly across the three regions. The comparative analysis has made it possible to highlight shared sustainable development goals, which create favourable conditions for strengthening international cooperation and exchanging effective practices, despite differing approaches to political governance (fragmented in the U.S., multi-level in the EU, and centralized in China). Originality. For the first time, an integrative approach has been substantiated for analysing investments in green technologies across major global mega-regions (the USA, the EU, and China). Unlike existing studies, which are mostly focused on individual countries or sectors, this approach enables a systematic comparison of investment strategies, political frameworks, and structural features of ecological modernization. It has been proven that the effectiveness of investments in green technologies is largely determined by the type of political governance – fragmented (USA), multi-level (EU), and centralized (China) – which significantly influences the scale, pace, and institutional stability of the green transition. It has been established that shared sustainable development goals, despite differing approaches, create synergistic opportunities for international cooperation, exchange of best practices, and the formation of global environmental partnerships. Methodological approaches to the comparative analysis of green investments have been improved through the development of an interregional analytical model that links investment dynamics with sustainable urban development outcomes. Scientific understanding of the role of institutional factors – particularly innovation ecosystems, environmental legislation, and state support – in shaping investment flows in the green technology sector has been further advanced. The proposed approach offers deeper insight into the interconnection between environmental policy, urban transformations, and global economic trends. Practical value. This research provides valuable insights for policymakers, urban planners, and investors by identifying key drivers, challenges, and best practices in green technology across major mega-regions. It supports targeted investment strategies, fosters regional cooperation, and promotes model replication. The article examines targeted investment strategies and analytical tools that can be used to support regional cooperation and scale up effective models. The proposed analytical framework enables the assessment of innovation potential and guides the development of sustainable urban environments. Key words: mega-regions, urban archipelagos, green technologies investments, sustainable economic growth, renewable energy, global economic environment, funding mechanisms.

In the previous chapter I examined the AU–ECOWAS regional military intervention legal regimes and considered specific provisions and their compatibility with the UN Charter. I argued that at the normative level, the key provisions in the AU and ECOWAS treaties reveal a deliberate departure from the UN Charter collective security system and seek to pursue the protection of human rights, peace, security and stability in Africa outside the UN Charter framework; cooperating with the UN when possible and necessary, but also retaining for the AU and ECOWAS a domain reserve—primary responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security in Africa and the authority to undertake enforcement actions without UN Security Council authorisation. Consequently, I identified four arenas of normative incompatibility and ambiguities between the AU–ECOWAS regional military intervention legal regimes and the UN Charter and the challenge posed by these developments to the Charter system and international law on the use of force. I also highlighted the objections raised about the legal validity of the AU–ECOWAS regional military intervention legal regimes as a result of these normative incompatibilities with the UN Charter. However, I argued that rather than dismiss the regimes as invalid for imposing obligations on members which conflict with their UN Charter obligations, and thus, apparently incompatible with the Charter, the provisions should be seen as underscoring the need for a theoretical deconstruction to ascertain the legal validity or otherwise of these treaty provisions in order to reconstruct a regime of normative compatibility between the UN Charter and the AU–ECOWAS regional military intervention legal regimes with a view to optimising the utility whether as instruments for traditional humanitarian intervention or for the operationalisation of R2P in Africa.

The notion of “sustainable development” has become very popular through the report “Our Common Future” published in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development in preparation of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (WCED, 1987). The report states that sustainable development “integrates economics and ecology in decision making and law making to protect the environment and to promote development” (p. 37). It “aims at a type of development which integrates production with resource conservation and enhancement and links both to providing an adequate livelihood base and equitable access to resources” (p. 39). It tries to “reorient international relations to achieve trade, capital and technology flows that are more equitable and consistent with environmental imperatives” (p. 40). It “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (p. 43)

Sustainability and sustainable development have become important concepts and goals across science and society. Sustainability, connected to desirable long-term conditions, is an inherently applied in public sector, public procurements. Every year the European Union (EU) Member States collectively spend around 14% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on public procurement. In Latvia, public procurement accounts for 17% of GDP. The review of the new public procurement directives and their transposition process in Latvia plans to show new opportunities for green public procurement (GPP) application: the contracting authority will be able to reject, for example, an abnormally low bid, include environmental management system requirements in the selection criteria, use life cycle costing criteria, etc. GPP is the systematic integration of environmental criteria into all activities related to the procurement of goods or services, from the identification of needs, the development of appropriate specifications and evaluation procedures, to the monitoring of the results achieved. The aim of the work is to analyse sustainability theory and explore the application of GPP to improve the quality of GPP through sustainability. With a view to increasing sustainable consumption over the last 25 years, several initiatives have been developed. The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development developed the Concept of Sustainable Development "Our Common Future (1987)", that was widely used in the context of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Sustainable development concept was defined at the international event in 1995 in Oslo "use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations" (Giulio, Fischer, et al., 2014). The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) made "green growth" its 2011 slogan (Lorek, Spangenberg, 2014). The green economy became a pillar of major European and international strategies: most notably in the Europe 2020 strategy adopted in 2010 by the EU to drive sustainable growth, and in the Rio+20 outcome. The incentive to use GPP is based on the fact that in many countries public sector spending amounts to a significant part of the economy, and that this purchasing power can be used to influence production and consumption to achieve desired reductions on environmental impact (Lundberg, S., Marklund, P.O., Strömbäck, E., Sundstrom, D., 2015). When public authorities go green, they make an invaluable contribution to environmental protection and sustainable development, setting a trend that often convinces other to follow suit (Day, 2005). The practice amounts to significant expenditure, excluding utilities and defence, across Europe, comprising 13% of European GDP in 2015 (Commission, 2016). In the last decade, the use of environmental criteria in public tenders has been increasing defusing (Testa, F., Iraldo, F., Frey, M., Daddi, T., 2016). The implementation of GPP is covering new sector in recent years, identifying new practices (Cheng, W., Apolloni, A., D'Amato, A., Zhu, Q., 2018). The challenges that the European municipalities face on a path towards sustainability were outlined, along with the undertaking of sustainable procurement and the active promoton of sustainable production and consumption, particularly, eco- labelled, organic, ethical and fair-trade products (Belgica, P.B., Jose, B.C.M., 2016). Keywords: sustainability, green procurement, sustainable theory