UNEP
Since the late 1960s, international concern over the environmental has increased dramatically. The world has come to realize that there are no national boundaries when it comes to most forms of pollution. In 1972, the United Nations sponsored the first major international conference on environmental issues held in Stockholm, Sweden. The most important outcome of the conference was the creation of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). UNEP was designed to be "the environmental conscience of the United Nations." It worked to achieve scientific consensus about major environmental issues and to study ways to encourage sustainable development thereby increasing standards of living without destroying the environment. UNEP was also the first UN agency to be headquartered in a developing country, with offices in Nairobi, Kenya. This was a symbolic gesture to the developing countries of the UN who were concerned that a global focus on environmental protection was a way for their developed counterparts to keep them at a disadvantage. When the UNEP was created back in 1972, only 11 countries had environmental agencies. Ten years later that number had increased to 106 with developing countries accounted for 70.

CITES
In 1975 the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) went into effect with the goal of reducing commerce in animals and plants on the edge of extinction.

The Earth Summit
In 1992, twenty years after the Stockholm Conference, a UN Conference known as the Earth Summit, became the largest gathering of world leaders in history. The Earth Summit produced two major treaties. The first was an agreement to reduce emission of gases leading to global warming, and the second was a treaty on biodiversity requiring countries to develop plans to protect endangered species and habitats.

The Green Parties
Green Parties are political parties whose emphasis was largely on environmental protection. The first green party to be created was the Values Party in New Zealand, which formed in 1972. By far the most successful green party is the Die Grunen of West Germany, which in 1983 won nearly 6 percent of the seats in the West German Parliament. Green parties have developed in almost all countries that have open elections. However, they tend to be more successful in nations governed by a parliamentary system. In 1993, green parties from eastern and western Europe came together to form the European Federation of Green Parties. With a unified green party, they hoped to gain enough leverage to demand that environmental issues such as pollution control, population growth, and sustainable development be more fully addressed.