Estimates suggest that nearly 1.5 billion people lack safe drinking water and that at least 5 million deaths per year can be attributed to waterborne diseases. With over 70 percent of the planet covered by oceans, people have long acted as if these very bodies of water could serve as a limitless dumping ground for wastes. Raw sewage, garbage, and oil spills have begun to overwhelm the diluting capabilities of the oceans, and most coastal waters are now polluted. Beaches around the world are closed regularly, often because of high amounts of bacteria from sewage disposal, and marine wildlife is beginning to suffer.

Perhaps the biggest reason for developing a worldwide effort to monitor and restrict global pollution is the fact that most forms of pollution do not respect national boundaries. The first major international conference on environmental issues was held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972 and was sponsored by the United Nations (UN). This meeting, at which the United States took a leading role, was controversial because many developing countries were fearful that a focus on environmental protection was a means for the developed world to keep the undeveloped world in an economically subservient position. The most important outcome of the conference was the creation of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP).

UNEP was designed to be “the environmental conscience of the United Nations,” and, in an attempt to allay fears of the developing world, it became the first UN agency to be headquartered in a developing country, with offices in Nairobi, Kenya. In addition to attempting to achieve scientific consensus about major environmental issues, a major focus for UNEP has been the study of ways to encourage sustainable development increasing standards of living without destroying the environment. At the time of UNEP's creation in 1972, only 11 countries had environmental agencies. Ten years later that number had grown to 106, of which 70 were in developing countries.