NOON BRIEFING HIGHLIGHTS
Spokesperson for General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi
United Nations Headquarters, New York
Wednesday, 12 April 2023
SCIENCE BRIEFING
Let me start off by saying that there will be a surprise.
Not in this noon briefing, but in the Informal Briefing of the General Assembly on science, which is underway.
This is the second such science briefing, the first one was in February.
President Csaba Kőrösi announced in his opening remarks that there would be a surprise development, as surprise announcement later this afternoon.
In his opening remarks, President Kőrösi said today’s event is meant to help diplomats support their negotiations, the 16 mandated negotiations processes underway in the General Assembly… those include preparations for the SDG Summit, preparations for the Financing for Sustainable Development, the Summit of the Future – all in September; and preparations for the High-Level Political Forum in July.
Today’s science briefing is comprised of three panels.
The first was “Beyond GDP”.
What does this mean?
In terms of Gross Domestic Product, of course, we measure goods and services.
In fact, in the first panel, the moderator, Stefan Schweinfest, said GDP is kind of a UN success story because of the thousands of national government officials around the world who have been trained on how to measure and what to measure – so the criteria are comparable over time and between countries.
But GDP doesn’t measure everything, especially when you’re talking about sustainable development.
And that’s what the President noted in his opening remarks.
To paraphrase, he said all our actions have consequences, some of those unintended externalities, such as human-induced climate change, human-induced biodiversity loss, human-induced water crisis, human-induced debt crisis, and so on.
When the SDGs were approved by the international community, within SDG17, there is wording to create statistics for Beyond GDP – ones that are as universally understood as GDP, but ones that measure so much more – in my words, the number of trees cut down or how polluted the air became – things that go beyond GDP.
The President today said quote “If we do the work right, there will be a better, impact-based accountability of our actions.”
Emphasis on Impact-based.
The results, he said, would also be strengthened credibility of determination and actions of SDG implementation… and stronger investments that work for everyone.
The second panel is underway right now.
It is on “Food Security and Sustainable Transformation”.
You know that between 2019 and 2022, the number of people grappling with acute food insecurity shot up from 135 million to 345 million.
The President noted, however that the world has the ability to feed 10 billion and to do it in a sustainable manner. How to do this? That’s up to today’s panel. The scientists and experts are expected to tell the international community how to do that.
The third panel is entitled “Scientific support system at the United Nations: A New science based normal – it will take place from 3:00 to 4:30PM.
You have the President’s full remarks online and in your inbox: https://www.un.org/pga/77/2023/04/12/pga-remarks-to-opening-of-2nd-ga-science-briefing/
You will have a summary from me of the main ideas from each panel.
And then the President’s promised surprise at around 5PM.
Watch live. The afternoon briefing will be available on UN WebTV https://media.un.org/en/asset/k12/k12ndn2tzo
Related, there is a short social media video about “Beyond GDP” on the President’s social media accounts: https://twitter.com/UN_PGA/status/1646152682191593475
QUESTIONS
The Spokesperson was asked for any details on the President’s expected “surprise announcement”. The Spokesperson said that she would send out an email once the surprise is revealed.
