REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE
Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was attended by spokespersons for the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Food Programme, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the International Organization for Migration. A representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund was also present, but had no announcement to make.
Also attending the briefing were Palestinian journalists participating in an annual Seminar for Palestinian Journalists held by the United Nations Information Service.
United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen
Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the United Nations Climate Change Conference had opened yesterday in Copenhagen, with numerous countries issuing urgent calls for action to curb global warming. Over 15,000 people, including government officials and representatives from the private sector, environmental organizations and research institutions, were expected to take part in the Conference, which would run to 18 December. More than 100 heads of State and Government, including United States President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, would also travel to Copenhagen to lend their support for a global agreement.
Negotiators had six days to conclude their work before the high-level ministerial segment of the summit, which would begin on 16 December. Ministers would then have two days to settle outstanding questions before the arrival of heads of State and Government on 17 December, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier observed.
“Our target, our goal, is to have a legally binding treaty as soon as possible in 2010. But before that, we must have a strong political agreement in Copenhagen. The more ambitious, the stronger agreement we have in Copenhagen, the easier, the quicker the process we will have to a legally binding treaty in 2010, as early as possible”, United Nations Secretary-General Ban had stressed at a joint press meeting with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Monday in New York, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier reported. Available in the Press Room was the full transcript of the Secretary-General’s comments.
Mr. Ban would travel to Copenhagen next week to attend the high level segment of the Summit, where he hoped that a solid agreement including concrete commitments with regard to limitation, adaptation, financing and technology could be achieved, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier added.
Secretary-General/Attacks on UNAMID
On Sunday, Secretary-General Ban had called Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, given the deteriorating security situation in Darfur, with regard to two recent attacks in which five Blue Helmets had been killed and five others wounded. During the telephone conversation, Mr. Ban had also urged the Sudanese leader to become directly involved in securing the release of two staff members of the joint African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) who had been held hostage now for over 100 days, stressing that the situation was critical given that one of them was gravely ill. He had also stressed the need to apprehend the perpetrators of the two recent attacks, carried out over the weekend against UNAMID peacekeepers, and to bring them to justice. During the call, President al-Bashir had assured the Secretary-General that he had given the orders for the perpetrators to be arrested and that everything possible was also being done to obtain the liberation of the two hostages taken on 29 August 2009.
Geneva Activities
Turning to events in Geneva, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that next Thursday, 10 December, at 6:30 p.m., the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, would address the closing of a three-day international meeting entitled "The Courage to Lead: A Human Rights Summit for Women Leaders", which would take place in the Assembly Hall at the Palais des Nations. The meeting, which would run from 8 to 10 December with other sessions hosted at the International Labour Organization (ILO), focused on economic development, education and political empowerment and protection from violence against women and human trafficking. The summit was organized by Vital Voices Global Partnership and the Eleanor Roosevelt Project, in association with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Permanent Mission of USA in Geneva.
Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier also noted that, following today’s regular briefing, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, would give a press briefing in the same room.
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) announced the publication of the 2009 Study on Maritime Transport. The Study found that growth in the volume of maritime transport had been below predicted levels, but had remained positive – 3.6 per cent for 2008. The study also showed a disparity between orders and potential capacity to transport merchandise. Copies of the study were available in the Press Room and on the UNCTAD website.
In addition, on the occasion of the Copenhagen Summit, UNCTAD was publishing today a policy brief on the costs and opportunities that climate change offered to developing countries, Ms. Sibut-Pinote said.
World Food Programme
Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme (WFP) said a media advisory was available at the back of the room with details of a virtual news conference to be held by WFP tomorrow on the humanitarian impact and response to the effects of climate change on hunger. It would be hosted by WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran, with the participation of Alex Evans, the author of a Chatham House report on the subject, as well as Phil Bloomer, Oxfam’s Policy Director. The telephone conference would take place tomorrow at 2:30 p.m.
In addition, there was also a news release on the start of a four-month WFP blanket supplementary feeding programme for 450,000 children under the age of five, as well as pregnant and nursing mothers, in Kenya, Ms. Casella said. That was a response to a recent nutrition survey, which had found malnutrition levels above the 15 per cent emergency threshold in the areas targeted.
IOM/Climate Change and Migration
Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said IOM was releasing a new report on Migration, Environment and Climate Change: Assessing the Evidence, which found that large-scale human movement from climate change and environmental degradation was not only inevitable, but was already happening.
Frank Laczko, Chief of Research and Publications at IOM, said this new report was perhaps the most comprehensive review of research looking at the impact of climate change on migratory movements around the globe, bringing together the recent findings from some of the major studies on migration that had been carried out around the world. Back in 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had warned that perhaps one of the greatest impacts of climate change would be on the movement of people. However, for many years the research community had neglected that issue, and only recently had it resurfaced. Unfortunately, it had resurfaced with an almost exclusive focus on the issue as a refugee issue and using figures not based on any evidence whatsoever. Yesterday, in the Tribune de Geneve it had been reported that there were 200 million climate change refugees. The figures – which sometimes went up to 1 billion climate change refugees – varied enormously and none were based on hard evidence.
One of the key messages of the report was that they needed to frame the issues differently, Mr. Laczko stressed. Existing evidence, for example, suggested that most “climate migrants” moved within countries and did not cross borders. They might not wish therefore to characterize such movements as “refugee” movements. The starting point for the discussion was not to start by saying that migration was a problem. Migration could also be part of the solution, in particular where they had time to prepare for such changes. Another key message of the report was that they needed both policies to deal with displacement and disasters, but they needed to think about how to link migration to current plans to promote climate change adaptation.
UN Refugee Agency
Andrej Mahecic of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said representatives of national governments, municipalities, non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations, academics and refugees themselves were expected to participate in the third annual “High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection Challenges”, which was focusing this year on the challenges faced by millions of refugees, internally displaced persons and returnees who were living in cities and towns across the globe. According to UNHCR statistics, as many as 50 per cent of the world’s 10.5 million refugees under the Agency’s mandate were now living in towns and cities, and at least twice the number of internally displaced persons were believed to be living in urban settings. The two-day dialogue started tomorrow, Wednesday, 9 December at 10 a.m. in Room XIX, with opening remarks by High Commissioner Antonio Guterres, and statements by other eminent persons, including the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Jordan and the Mayor of Geneva.
At a roundtable meeting today, mayors from some 20 cities and other senior officials from around the world would gather to discuss specific challenges, highlight areas of concern, and identify good practices. The roundtable would open at 3 p.m. in Room XXVII, with an address by High Commissioner Guterres and the Mayors of Geneva and The Hague.
Only keynote addresses were open to the press. The rest of the dialogue would be held in separate working groups, Mr. Mahecic specified.
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that humanitarian agencies and the Government of Zimbabwe had today requested $378 million to provide assistance to millions of people in the country in 2010. Although the humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe had improved, it remained extremely fragile. About 6 million people remained vulnerable owing to the erosion of basic services and livelihoods owing to the protracted economic downturn and an equal number lacked access to safe water and sanitation. The country also faced a substantial national cereal deficit owing to drought and it was projected that 1.9 million people would need food assistance in the coming year. In addition, since September 2009, Zimbabwe had been facing a cholera outbreak that had killed 4,282 people in 2008/09 and had affected 55 of 62 districts in the country.
Ms. Byrs also announced that, on 9 December in New York, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) was holding its annual high-level donors conference. Since its inception, CERF had allocated close to $1.4 billion to support rapid onset and neglected emergencies in 74 countries and the Occupied Palestinian territories. The goal of the CERF was specifically to provide flexible financing in cases where urgent assistance was required. An information note was available.
A press release was also available announcing that Norway had signed a funding agreement with OCHA under which it committed to gradually increasing the amount of its assistance to OCHA over a four-year period (2010-2013). Ms. Byrs observed that Norway was the fifth most important donor to OCHA, following Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.
Conference on Social Impact of Global Financial and Economic Crisis in Almaty
Corinne Perthuis of the International Labour Organization (ILO) drew attention to a two-day conference, which had begun yesterday in Almaty, on the social impact of the global financial and economic crisis.
Mervin Fletscher of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that the Conference was being attended by 12 Governments from the Central Asian and Caucasian regions and had been co-organized by ILO, UNICEF, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the United Nations Development Programme.
Other
Fadéla Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that on 15 December WHO would launch its Global Malaria Report 2009 at 11:30 a.m. in Room III. A media advisory would be sent to journalists tomorrow.
On 18 December, the WHO representative in Afghanistan would be in Geneva and would hold a briefing on the health situation in Afghanistan, Ms. Chaib said, with details to be confirmed later. Regarding the H1N1 flu epidemic, Ms. Chaib announced that there would probably be a virtual press briefing on the subject on Thursday, with dates and participants to be confirmed. Also, today at 2:30 p.m. in Washington, D.C., WHO was holding a press conference to launch its update on the fight against tuberculosis, with the head of WHO’s Stop TB department.
In a related item to climate change, Gaëlle Sévenier of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) observed that, Experts had predicted that climate change was likely to lead to an increase in the frequency and severity of droughts. A meeting of international experts in Nebraska this week would therefore be recommending standard drought indices for various types of droughts and that guidelines be developed for countries in implementing and improving drought early warning systems. At the end of next week, she would present the conclusions of the meeting, which would also be the subject of a press conference in Copenhagen.
Ms. Sévenier also drew attention to a press conference today on the WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 2009, which would be held at 12:15 p.m. in Room III. There would be a simultaneous launch of the report in Copenhagen.
Christine Alfsen-Norodom, acting Director of the New York Liaison Office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said that, as the Copenhagen Conference opened, she was pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition “Gateways to Conservation” which illustrated how biological and cultural diversity were among the essential bases for the capacity to adapt to climate change and environmental change. The exhibit was being held at the Palais des Nations from 8 to 15 December. UNESCO was also organizing a conference in May in Montreal on cultural and biological diversity.