NOON BRIEFING HIGHLIGHTS

Spokesperson for General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi
United Nations Headquarters, New York

Thursday, 8 June 2023

AIR QUALITY

New York City is still under an air quality alert today.

I wanted to draw your attention to comments made by President Csaba Kőrösi.

He said that New York’s Air Quality Alert is a reminder that climate risks know no boundaries.

Climate change manifests itself through water.

To tackle climate change, we have to solve the water crisis.

That means implementing the outcomes from the UN Water Conference, he urged in a tweet. https://twitter.com/UN_PGA/status/1666564552740474886

The first of the 9 gamechangers calls for integrating water and climate policy at national and global levels by 2030.

There is more about the gamechangers in the President’s mandated summary from the UN Water Conference, and I’ll include the link in today’s notes: https://www.un.org/pga/77/wp-content/uploads/sites/105/2023/05/PGA77-Summary-for-Water-Conference-2023.pdf

 

ECOSOC

Moving on to the elections for the Economic and Social Council…

Member States today elected Türkiye in a by-election for a seat vacated by Greece in the Western European and Others Group. Türkiye’s term will start on January first 2024 and run through December of the following year.

In that same election, Member States voted to fill the ongoing vacancy in the Eastern European Group.

Out of the 184 Member States present and voting, the winning candidate would have needed 123 votes. Neither candidate achieved the necessary threshold.

There will be further balloting at a date yet to be announced.

Member States voted on green ballot paper.

After announcement of results, Member States then elected the 18 members of the ECOSOC who will serve a three-year term starting on January first 2024.

  • France
  • Germany
  • Haiti
  • Japan
  • Kenya
  • Liechtenstein
  • Mauritania
  • Nepal
  • Nigeria
  • Pakistan
  • Paraguay
  • Poland
  • Senegal
  • Spain
  • Suriname
  • United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  • Uruguay
  • Zambia

Tellers collected the votes on pink paper.

President Csaba Kőrösi thanks all the tellers for their support to the elections.

 

NEW INTERNATIONAL DAY

Also today, the General Assembly created a new international day.

The International Day of Combating Sand and Dust Storms will be observed annually on 12 July.

The draft resolution – which was adopted by consensus – was sponsored by Cuba, on behalf of G77 and China.

 

BILATERALS

In terms of his bilaterals today, President Kőrösi is meeting with a group of EU Ambassadors.

The situation in Ukraine and preparations for the SDG Summit are expected to be discussed.

 

FRIDAY

And speaking of the latter… Tomorrow, Member States will hold informal consultations on the political declaration of the SDG Summit.

 

QUESTIONS

There were no questions for the Spokesperson.