G****l environmental capital Nairobi in jeopardy?
Last week, Nairobi saw an exceptionally successful session of the UN Environment Assembly to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the UN Environment Programme that adopted by consensus a number of historic decisions on ridding the world from the scourge of plastic pollution, expanding international cooperation in other key environmental issues, and the strengthening and improving the work of UNEP and the UN Office in Nairobi. These are very positive facts that should make us all deservedly proud.
However, the session also witnessed an extremely disturbing development that could jeopardise the role and the standing of Nairobi as the environmental capital of the world and the only UN capital in the Global South. By that, I mean a vicious attack by the European Union (especially France), US, and their supporters on what is universally known as “Nairobi Spirit” – a noble and lofty tradition of the international environmentalist community to keep politics away from the multilateral debate on environment, which is too important for humanity to be exploited for selfish political gain.
These countries chose to use the platform of UN Environment Assembly for their belligerent propaganda under the false pretext of the so-called “Russian invasion of Ukraine” spreading disinformation and lies like the “shelling by the Russians of a Ukrainian nuclear power station”. Today, it has been well established, including by IAEA and the Ukrainians themselves, that the power station in question has never been shelled, and it is functioning normally to produce electricity for the Ukrainian people. The only danger to the nuclear power installations in Ukraine comes from the Kiev regime and its racist Neo-Nazi stormtroopers (with swastikas and other Hitlerian paraphernalia) who are now harassing Africans and Asians in Ukraine and whom the European Union and its friends so energetically support and protect.
Never before has the “Nairobi Spirit” been so brutally violated.
Driven by the understanding of the importance of a concerted multilateral response to the current global environmental crises, the Russian delegation has made every possible effort to prevent this very sad situation and salvage the “Nairobi Spirit”. We participated in all negotiations in good faith and in a non-politicised manner demonstrating flexibility and constructive approach.
Unfortunately, the countries that declare themselves “leaders of global environment” (and who, incidentally, were the perpetrators of aggressions against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria) had their way thus betraying the trust and confidence of generations of environmental experts and decision-makers from around the world in open, honest, and professional multilateral environmental dialogue in Nairobi for the common good of humankind.
The damage is done. We can only hope it is not yet irreversible and Nairobi will continue as the global environmental capital, the only UN capital in the Global South. We will always support Nairobi.
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I kindly ask my Kenyan friends not to blame Russia for the difficulties in international trade that Africa is currently experiencing. The disruptions in global economy and trade are a direct result of the illegal and hysterical “sanctions” that the European Union, the US and some others have imposed on Russia.
— The writer is ambassador of Russia in Nairobi
