The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is working closely with China to ensure the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games to be remembered as the greenest Olympics, a senior UNEP official said Tuesday in Nairobi.

"We are looking forward to working with the Chinese government, with the organizing committee, in ensuring that the 2008 Olympics in Beijing are remembered as the greenest Olympics so far," Shafqat Kakakhel, UNEP's deputy executive director told Xinhua.

Kakakhel, who is also United Nations assistant secretary-general, met the visiting International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge at UNEP Tuesday morning.

"I mentioned to Mr. Rogge that we have had contacts with the Chinese authorities ... I told him that the Chinese authorities are committed to ensuring the Games are organized in an environmentally friendly manner," Kakakhel said.

"I expressed the hope that the three of us, the IOC, UNEP and the Chinese authorities, work in an important alliance as regards to environment," he added.

Kakakhel, a national of Pakistan, served with the Foreign Service of his country for over twenty-eight years before the secretary-general of the United Nations appointed him as deputy executive director of UNEP in 1998.