With the participation of Syria, the United Nations General Assembly continued the general debate of the 78th session, where a number of heads of state and government gave their speeches on the goals of sustainable development and climate change.
The United Nations headquarters witnessed the opening of the “High-level Dialogue on Financing Sustainable Development”. It also witnessed the opening of the “Climate Ambition” summit chaired by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, in which he considered that humanity has opened the gates of hell wide open, in reference to the significant increase in Greenhouse gas emissions ratio.
Guterres warned that continuing with current policies would lead to a temperature rise of 2.8 degrees Celsius above what it was before the industrial era.
Guterres stressed the need for countries to implement their climate-related financial commitments, describing the upcoming COP28 climate conference, organized by the United Nations and which will be held in the UAE, as the last chance for the planet.
The high-level meeting on “Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response,” was also opened at the UN headquarters during which the Director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus, noted that the right to health is a basic human right, an end in itself, and a path to development, in an effort to create a more just and prosperous world.
For her part, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Head of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group, Amina Mohammed, underlined the need to ensure that all countries have equitable access to treatments and vaccines and to strengthen their health systems.
Inas Abdulkareem