When the United Nations (UN) was founded, environmental issues were not seen as a significant threat. Now, seventy-five years since the UN first came into existence, environmental issues, from being of peripheral concern, have become mainstream and are defining many multilateral deliberations. The growing environmental concerns – particularly since the 1960s – resulted in the emergence of hundreds of multilateral and bilateral agreements along with international and national institutions. The contributions of the UN in all these developments were critical.