[T]he 1970s saw significant environmental diplomacy . . .

Thus the 1970s saw significant environmental diplomacy: as many treaties were drawn up in a single decade as in the previous forty years. One consequence was that the seas became markedly cleaner as agreements were reached to control marine dumping and land-based sources of marine pollution as well. In the Mediterranean, for instance, untreated sewage, industrial effluent, and oil had pushed up pollution to a “critical level.”        . . . The UNEP [United Nations Environment Programme] played a part in helping to turn this around, and under its leadership Israel and the Arab states, Greece, and Turkey all participated in the cleanup. It was not a route to larger regional peace. But pollution levels were stabilized, and water cleanliness improved despite the rapid growth of cities and industries around its shores.

Mark Mazower, Governing the World: The History of an Idea (New York: The Penguin Press, 2012), 336.