NAIROBI, December 12, 2025 — The seventh meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-7) is concluding two weeks of negotiations with the adoption of a number of resolutions and decisions, and many compromises at the 11th hour.
UNEA-7 was scheduled to address a wide range of subjects, including nature, chemicals, waste, and items related to the budget and governing bodies. Over the course of the negotiations, many of the proposed resolutions were watered down or withdrawn.
While UNEA-7 showcased some landmark events, including the first-ever women’s assembly and the inaugural high-level special Indigenous Peoples event, these were countered by backward steps in the negotiating rooms. Both the Women’s and the Indigenous Peoples’ Major Groups held events protesting the deletion of references to rights holders, including gender, women, and Indigenous Peoples, from the negotiating texts. Throughout the negotiations, observers, including representatives from the NGOs, Children and Youth, Scientific & Technological Communities, Farmers, Local Authorities, Worker and Trade Unions, and Indigenous Peoples Major Groups decried the continued shrinking of participation in the meetings.
“Many of the conversations over the last two weeks kept coming back to UNEP’s medium-term strategy (outlining how the institution will respond to the triple planetary crisis) and adopting a budget,” says Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) Senior Attorney Andrés del Castillo. “For the international legal regime to be successful, we need functional and adequately resourced governing bodies. Unsurprisingly, progressive and equitable action was blocked at nearly every step. It is unfortunate that yet another negotiation has been roiled by some of the same obstructionist tactics we have come to expect in global environmental governance.”
Still, Member States were able to eke out progress in some decisions. CIEL Senior Attorney and Environmental Health Program Manager Giulia Carlini closely followed a resolution on chemicals and waste, remarking, “While the resolution was significantly watered down over the course of the negotiation, there are still some advancements: The adopted resolution points toward further action in 2026, including much-needed work on heavy metals, the finalization of a long-anticipated update on the UNEP/WHO State of the Science Report on endocrine disrupting chemicals, and the future operationalization of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution, which will meet in February for the first time.”
UNEA’s success must also be measured by what happened on the margins of the negotiation.
Andrés del Castillo continues, “Coming into UNEA, there was a fear that some Member States would use the Assembly as an opportunity to reopen the mandate to negotiate the plastics treaty. Fortunately, those fears were unfounded, and UNEA-5/14 still stands. While there are no explicit mentions of the plastics treaty in the adopted resolutions, the Ministerial Declaration reaffirms Member States’ shared commitment to engaging constructively and actively, with a sense of urgency and solidarity, to conclude the negotiations. We have also seen civil society, rights holders and Member States engage in vibrant discussion in panels, side events, and other gatherings over the treaty’s future. We are hopeful that these conversations will set the stage for the next round of negotiations in February.”
Solar geoengineering, which was not on the formal agenda, was also discussed on the margins. The Africa Group launched a significant new initiative on the sidelines of UNEA-7 for a plurilateral dialogue on a Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement, to explore how such an Agreement could be established, building on the recent African Ministerial decision at AMCEN20.
Mary Church, CIEL Geoengineering Campaign Manager, says, “The Africa Group’s leadership in driving forward dialogue on how to establish a Non Use Agreement for solar geoengineering sends a clear message that these technologies are not inevitable, and that governments can and must come together to prevent dangerous technology development and the slippery slope to deployment. We welcome this crucial initiative and urge governments to get behind it.”
NOTE TO EDITORS
The Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement is an academic initiative that calls for development, testing and deployment of these technologies to be permanently banned on the basis that they are inherently unpredictable, untestable and ungovernable. The five pillars of such an agreement would center around 1) no public funding, 2) no outdoor experiments, 3) no patents, 4) no deployment, and 5) no support in international institutions. There is growing political momentum behind the call most notably with decisions of the African Environment Ministers at AMCEN19 and AMCEN20, and a European Parliament resolution in 2023. Vanuatu and Fiji have also backed the call, while some European governments have indicated openness to dialogue on Non Use. The launch of a plurilateral dialogue by the African Group represents a further significant step forward.
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