The world’s top decision-making body on the environment is meeting in Kenya's capital on Monday to discuss how countries can work together to tackle environmental crises like climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity. Ednews reports through ABC.

The meeting in Nairobi is the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, and governments, civil society groups, scientists and the private sector are attending.

“None of us live on an island. We live on planet Earth, and we are all connected,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, which is leading the process, told The Associated Press ahead of the talks. “The only way we can solve some of these problems is by talking together.”

At the meeting, member states discuss a raft of draft resolutions on a range of issues that the assembly adopts upon consensus. If a proposal is adopted, it sets the stage for countries to implement what’s been agreed on.

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. Andersen described it then as the most significant environmental multilateral deal since the Paris Agreement to limit global warming.

For this year’s talks, countries have submitted 20 draft resolutions for discussion, including on how best to restore degraded lands, combat dust storms and reduce the environmental impact of metal and mineral mining.

But with countries having different priorities, it’s often hard to get consensus on the draft resolutions. However, Andersen said, there’s generally “a forward movement” on all draft resolutions for this year's meeting, known as UNEA-6.