In fact, world leaders, guided by urgency and political realism, are calling for the full implementation of sustainable development treaties. The perceived competition for finances is in part a result of the failure by many governments to pay their dues to the United Nations, a failure that is often prompted by concerns over bureaucratic inflation. There is no evidence that the situation will be different under a new organization. Furthermore, many of the agencies dealing with environmental issues focus on distinct but complementary functions that should not be collapsed under one behemoth. But more importantly, environmental problems are diverse in character and require specialized institutional responses.
Governments can coordinate without creating a new bureaucracy.
There is, however, an urgent need to share experiences and lessons, codify principles, promote guidelines, and set new standards. But this is just what global treaties on climate change, biological diversity, endangered species, and control of desert growth were created to do. Many of them are already doing this without the perils of centralization. It is true that most sustainable development and environmental treaties lack effective enforcement mechanisms. One of the reasons is that governments cannot agree on how these treaties should work.