HIGHLIGHTS OF THE U.N. SYSTEM
THURSDAY, 29 MARCH 2018
 
SECRETARY-GENERAL’S PRESS ENCOUNTER ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Ladies and Gentlemen,
 
Good morning.
 
The headlines are naturally dominated by the escalation of tensions and conflicts, or high-level political events.
 
But the truth is that the most systemic threat to humankind remains climate change and I believe it is my duty to remind it to the whole of the international community.
 
And indeed, information released in recent days by the World Meteorological Organization, the World Bank and the International Energy Agency shows the relentless pace of climate change.
 
This tsunami of data should create a storm of concern.
 
The world reached several dire milestones in 2017.
 
The economic costs of climate-related disasters hit a record: $320 billion.
 
Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose 1.4 per cent, to 32.5 gigatonnes -- a historic high.
 
In 2017, the hurricane season in the Caribbean was the costliest ever, un-doing decades of development in an instant.
 
In South Asia, major monsoon floods affected 41 million people.
 
In Africa, severe drought drove nearly 900,000 people from their homes.
 
Wildfires caused destruction across the world.
 
And Arctic sea [ice] recorded its lowest winter maximum ever.
 
The consumption of fossil fuels rose last year, and accounted for 70 per cent of the growth in global energy demand. Atmospheric concentrations of CO2, methane and nitrous oxide are the highest they have been in 800,000 years.
 
The oceans are warmer and more acidic than at any time in recorded history.
 
When the Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted, our shared assumption was that humankind had the capacity to keep global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further, to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
 
Scientists are now worried that unless accelerated action is taken by 2020, the Paris goal may become unattainable.
 
And I am beginning to wonder how many more alarm bells must go off before the world rises to the challenge.
 
We know it can be hard to address problems perceived to be years or decades away. But climate impacts are already upon us.
 
We are struggling to mobilize the $100 billion per year that was promised -- yet we know that the costs of inaction are far greater.
 
Technology is on our side. Advances continue to generate solutions. Clean, green energy is more affordable and competitive than ever.
 
Yet we still see enormous subsidies for fossil fuels that hinder the energy transition.
 
According to the International Monetary Fund, energy subsidies in 2015 amounted to $5.3 trillion -- or 6.5 per cent of global gross domestic product.
 
And we continue to see huge investments in unsustainable infrastructure that lock in bad practices for decades.
 
As many have pointed out, the Stone Age did not end because the world ran out of stones.It ended because there were better alternatives.And the same applies today to fossil fuels.
 
Our problem is not that we do not know what to do -- it is how quickly we can do it.
 
I continue to call on world leaders to focus on bending the emissions curve and closing the emissions gap.
 
We need a further cut in emissions of at least 25 per cent by 2020.
 
And emissions of all greenhouse gases should not exceed 42 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2030.
 
Next year, as you know, I will convene a Summit aimed at raising ambition.
 
Science demands it. The global economy needs it and the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people depend on it. Food security, health, stability itself all hang in the balance.
 
2017 was filled with climate chaos.
 
2018 has already brought more of the same.
 
Climate change is still moving faster, much faster than we are.
 
What the world needs is a race to the top – with political will, innovation, financing and partnerships. And I remain convinced we have what it takes to prevail.
 
I would also like to take profit of this occasion to pay tribute to a colleague of mine that is today leaving the United Nations: Jeffrey Feltman.
 
He has been, as you know, the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, and I believe we all owe to him an extraordinary dedication, an enormous intelligence and a total commitment to the UN, to its values, and to peace and security in the world.
 
As you also know, I have appointed a new Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, the first woman ever to occupy that post. And I believe, Ms. Rosemary DiCarlo will represent a very important contribution to our work.
 
She is the President of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, here in New York, and Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University.
 
And she brings with her decades of extraordinary diplomatic experience. And I am sure she will have, with all of you, a very open and constructive relationship.
 
Thank you very much.

 
SECRETARY-GENERAL TO ATTEND YEMEN HUMANITARIAN CONFERENCE IN GENEVA

• On 2 April, the Secretary-General will arrive in Geneva, where he will speak at the High-Level Pledging Event for the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen on the following day.  He will also hold bilateral meetings on the margins of that event.
• The Secretary-General expects to hold a press stakeout about the pledging event in Geneva on Tuesday afternoon, prior to his departure back to New York.

• Thousands of men, women and children continue to leave Eastern Ghouta following weeks of fighting. 
• Since early March, close to 100,000 people have left Eastern Ghouta, tens of thousands of them are sheltered in eight collective shelters in rural Damascus where they are provided with emergency supplies and health assistance.
• At the same time, the UN and its partners are delivering humanitarian assistance through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) to people in Ain Tarma, Saqba, Harasta and Hamouriah inside Eastern Ghouta. The United Nations and its partners are also ready to proceed to Duma with food for up to 16,500 people, as well as health, nutrition and water, sanitation and hygiene supplies – as soon as security conditions allow and facilitation letters are signed by the Government of Syria.
• Over the past two days, more than 6,000 people have reached northwest Syria from Eastern Ghouta with more expected to arrive today. In total, since 14 March, some 31,000 people have been transported to locations in northwestern Syria.
• The UN continues to call for safe, unimpeded and sustained access to all in need, and any evacuation of civilians must be safe, voluntary, and to a place of their choosing. It is imperative that civilians have the right of return as soon as the situation allows.
• The UN and partners require nearly US$150 million to respond to the pressing humanitarian crisis in Eastern Ghouta and Afrin. Both the Syria Humanitarian Fund and the Turkey Humanitarian Fund are close to exhausted. Pooled funds are critical to our ability to mobilize rapidly and flexibly in response to sudden increases in needs. Increased donor support is urgently needed at this time to respond to the pressing needs of vulnerable civilians and to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in these areas.

• In the Central African Republic, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that clashes between fighters from the Unité pour la Paix en Centrafrique and the anti-Balaka that started on 21 March along the Bambari - Ippy axis in Ouaka province have resulted in 48 deaths, displaced hundreds of people, and reportedly left 19 villages burnt. 
• The localities of Tagbara and Seko have been emptied of their populations who have either fled to the bush, to Bambari, or to spontaneous internally displaced people sites -- at the Catholic Church in Seko with an estimated 561 households (approximately 5,000 people), the Seko Health Centre site with 512 households, and the Tagbara site with 567 households. Most of the displaced are women and children.
• A rapid humanitarian inter-agency assessment mission, led by OCHA, took place on 28 March. The mission has been able to provide some preliminary emergency humanitarian assistance including soap, drug kits, care for unaccompanied children, water purification tablets, high-energy biscuits and sanitation equipment, pending a more comprehensive humanitarian response.
• This year, the Humanitarian Response Plan for the CAR requires almost US$516 million, but so far only 3 percent of the funding has been received.

• The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said today it was appalled at the horrific deaths of at least 68 people in Venezuela after a fire swept through a police station jail on Wednesday amid reported clashes between detainees and security forces.
• It urges the Venezuelan authorities to carry out a prompt, thorough and effective investigation to establish the cause of these deaths, provide reparations to the victims’ families, and, where applicable, identify and bring those responsible to justice.
• The Human Rights Office says it is also concerned at reports that security forces used tear gas to disperse relatives who had gathered in front of the police station in Valencia, Carabobo State, to demand information about their loved ones. We call on the authorities to respect the families’ right to information and to peaceful assembly.
• There is widespread overcrowding and dire conditions in Venezuela’s prisons and also in police jails, which are often used as permanent detention centres. These conditions, which often give rise to violence and riots, are exacerbated by judicial delays and the excessive use of pre-trial detention.
• OHCHR recalls that States are guarantors of the lives and physical integrity of persons deprived of their liberty. It calls on the Venezuelan government to adopt immediate measures to address the conditions of detention to ensure that they comply with international human rights norms and standards, including the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
• To this end, it urges the authorities to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, so as to enable independent prison monitoring by an international body.

• Following the recent talks held in Beijing between the leaders of the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the Secretary-General welcomes the reported commitment by the DPRK to denuclearization.
• He views the latest positive developments as the start of a longer process of sincere dialogue, leading to sustainable peace and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

• Yesterday, the Deputy Secretary-General met with Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, President of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, in Nouakchott. They discussed the situation in the Sahel and agreed that more needs to be done in terms of sustainable development as a necessary complement to security measures.
• The Deputy Secretary-General also met in Nouakchott with Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission. The Deputy Secretary-General welcomed the African Union’s leadership by holding a strategy meeting on the Sahel and highlighted the need for more coordination and coherence between the different actors involved.

• Greece became today the 71st Member State to pay its regular budget dues in full.