Category: UN INSIDER

Analysis by Ramesh Jaura

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Before the UN Disarmament Commission started the second week of its session at the United Nations headquarters in New York, a joint statement issued in Hiroshima by the Japan NGO Network for Nuclear Weapons Abolition and the Hiroshima Alliance for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (HANWA) declared: “The prospect for a nuclear-free world is not bright.”

The statement emerging from Citizens Symposium some 7,000 miles away from New York on April 10 and addressed to the G7 governments – Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States – said: “Today, the over 15,000 nuclear warheads that exist on the planet continue to threaten the existence of humanity. Nuclear proliferation continues and the vicious cycle involving poverty, inequality, environmental degradation and violence is bringing about various kinds of humanitarian crises across the world.”

Analysis by Ronald Joshua

ROME (IDN) – A new report funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has taken up cudgels on behalf of some 60 million people around the world, who are facing severe hunger because of El Niño and millions more because of climate change.

Just days before world leaders gather at the United Nations in New York to sign the concluding document of the twenty-first session of the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP21), held in December 2015 in Paris, the report reveals that coverage on climate change has significantly fell off the radar of major media outlets across Europe and the United States.

IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze finds it “incredible” that in a year when we have had record temperatures, 32 major droughts, and historic crop losses that media are not positioning climate change on their front pages. “Climate change is the biggest threat facing our world today and how the media shape the narrative remains vitally important in pre-empting future crises,” he adds.

Analysis by Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – Within days of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington that considered modes of averting nuclear materials falling into the hands of terrorists, possible ways of Preventing Violent Extremism drew the focus of a UN conference in Geneva.

The conference on April 7-8 was held against the backdrop that terrorist groups such as ISIL, Al-Qaida and Boko Haram have come to embody the image of violent extremism and the debate about how to address this threat.

An important element of a plan to counter all kinds of terrorism, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, has to be full implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), because fulfilment of these goals will address many of the socioeconomic drivers of violent extremism. The SDGs highlight women’s empowerment and youth engagement, because societies with higher equality and inclusion are less vulnerable to violent extremism.

Analysis by Devinder Kumar

NEW DELHI (IDN) – The world’s four major newly industrialized countries – Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) – have in effect warned that signing the Paris Climate Agreement at the High-Level Ceremony on April 22 in New York will lead nowhere unless all elements of an ambitious accord are implemented in letter and spirit.

The High Level Signature Ceremony has been convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the world body’s headquarters. Ban’s second term as UN Chief expires end of the year.

The four BASIC countries have welcomed the adoption of the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and acknowledged that the 21st Conference of Parties (COP-21) held in Paris in December 2015 marked “a milestone in global climate cooperation”.

By Rodney Reynolds

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – When Antonio Guterres, the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees and ex- Prime Minister of Portugal, announced his candidature for the post of UN Secretary-General on February 29, he virtually undermined the longstanding claim that the next UN chief should be from Eastern Europe under a system of traditional geographical rotation.

But traditions are generally meant to be trodden down – at least at the United Nations.

Until Guterres’ declaration, all other officially declared candidates were from Eastern Europe: Dr Srgjan Kerim of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; Vesna Pusic of the Republic of Croatia; Dr Igor Luksic of Montenegro; Dr Danilo Turk of of Slovenia; Irina Bokova of Bulgaria; and Natalia Gherman of of Republic of Moldova.

On April 4, Helen Clark, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, announced her official candidature for the same post, throwing the race even more widely open.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Helen Clark, New Zealand’s first woman Prime Minister from1999 to 2008 and current Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since 2009, is convinced that she is “up to the task” of leading the United Nations when Ban Ki-moon’s term expires at the end of the year.

Helen Clark threw down the gauntlet to three women and four male candidates for the post of the UN Secretary-General on April 4. The woman candidates are: UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova of Bulgaria; Vesna Pusic, former Foreign Minister of Croatia, and Natalia Gherman, former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Moldova. The male candidates are: Srgian Kerim of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; Igor Luksic of Montenegro; Danilo Turk of Slovenia, and former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, who also served as the Portuguese Prime Minister.

Analysis by Catherine Baumann

BERLIN | VIENNA (IDN) – “The security of the world demands that nations — including the United States – ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and conclude a new treaty to end the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons once and for all,” wrote U.S. President Barack Obama in his opinion article for the Washington Post on March 30 on the eve of the fourth Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.

Responding to Obama’s call, Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), tweeted: “(We) need a #CTBT summit to cast test-ban into law & stop countries like #DPRK developing #nuclear weapons.”

Obama’s clarion call for ratification of the CTBT, banning all nuclear tests everywhere and anywhere – in run-up to the end of his presidency nine months from now – is of crucial importance.

Analysis by J C Suresh

TORONTO (IDN) – The Arctic Partnership announced in Washington, D.C. by U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been welcomed by Executive Secretary Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Although focused on climate action, the partnership agreed on March 10 has far-reaching consequences for biodiversity in the Arctic, including the role of indigenous peoples and their traditional knowledge, he said.

Opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and entering into force in December 1993, the CBD is an international treaty for the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable use of the components of biodiversity and the equitable sharing of the benefits derived from the use of genetic resources.

By Jaya Ramachandran

FRANKFURT | NAIROBI (IDN) – Impressive strides were made on renewable energy investments amounting to $266 billion in 2015 – more than double the estimated $130 billion invested in coal and gas power stations, according to a new United Nations backed report. But UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has issued a cautious note.

In his foreword to the report titled Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2016, Ban said: “In spite of these positive findings, to keep global temperature rise well below 2 degrees and aim for 1.5 degrees, we must immediately shift away from fossil fuels. Sustainable, renewable energy is growing, but not quickly enough to meet expected energy demand.”

Ban added: “For power sector development to be consistent with the goal of zero net greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the century, it will be necessary to reduce or leave idle fossil-fuel power plant capacity, unless carbon capture technologies become widely available and are rapidly and fully utilised.”

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The United Nations envoy for the peace process in the Middle East has questioned the political will of both Israel and Palestine to address the main challenges blocking peace efforts.

today warned the Security Council that the prospects for an independent Palestinian state are disappearing, and questioned

The UN Secretary-General’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, has made an impassioned plea for both Israel and Palestine to “actively take steps that would demonstrate their commitment to, and create the conditions for, an eventual return to negotiations so as to achieve a viable Palestinian State and ensure Israel’s long-term security”.

The international community must send a clear message to both Israel and Palestine that a two-State solution is the best road to peace, Mladenov, told the Security Council on March 24. He was reacting to the current bloody wave of escalating violence, including stabbings and shootings in Israel and the occupied West Bank.