President of 6th UN Environment Assembly urges greater collaboration at plenary opening

The plenary of the 6th United Nations Environment Assembly (UNéA-6) opened on Monday (Feb. 26) in Nairobi.

The body should discuss how countries can work together to tackle environmental crises like loss of biodiversity and pollution.

The president of this year's assembly is Morrocco’s Minister of Energy Transition. Leila Benali called for closer cooperation in efforts to tackle the climate crisis.

"We usually find ourselves talking about climate, biodiversity loss, pollution and other environmental issues in different rooms," Benali said.

"Those rooms, we are tackling these issues in silos, while we are the same human beings, it’s the same nature, it's the same environment and it’s the same planet. So we have, first time we discussed this with UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), we said we are very much concerned about the fragmentation and the piecemealing of environmental issues in different houses."

Countries will discuss 19 draft resolutions, including on how best to restore degraded lands, combat dust storms and reduce the environmental impact of metal and mineral mining.

The assembly adopts resolutions upon consensus.

When a proposal is adopted, it sets the stage for countries to implement it.

More than 7,000 people should attend the 5-day talks.

In the last round of talks in 2022, also in Nairobi, governments adopted 14 resolutions, including to create a legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution globally.