Republic Of Azerbaijan To Host World Environment Day 2026

ON 07/01/2024 AT 03 : 58 AM

The Republic of Azerbaijan will host World Environment Day 2026, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Republic of Azerbaijan recently announced in the capital, Baku, during an official visit by the Executive Director of UNEP, Inger Andersen.

World Environment Day, which Baku will host on 5 June 2026, is the largest global platform for environmental engagement and action. Established by the UN General Assembly in 1972, the Day inspires and is celebrated by millions of people across the world, who participate in online and in-person activities and events around the world aimed at accelerating environmental progress for people and planet. With Azerbaijan as hosts, World Environment Day 2026 will focus on climate change.

Recent years have seen nations working closer than ever to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss and pollution and waste. The UN Climate Change Conference COP28 saw countries agree to new commitments on renewable energy, efficiency, and methane amongst others, as well as signal the end of the fossil fuel era. The UN Biodiversity Conference COP15, in 2022, ended with the landmark Global Biodiversity Framework, which is now being implemented to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030, and the world adopted a historic treaty to protect life in the high seas.

By the end of this year, critical progress on climate finance is expected at COP29, along with countermeasures on desertification at the Convention to Combat Desertification COP16 and three years of international negotiations are expected to culminate in a legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution.

Next year, World Environment Day will be hosted by the Republic of Korea with a focus on ending plastic pollution. World Environment Day 2024 was hosted by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia  with a focus on land restoration, desertification, and drought resilience.