United Nations 5d ago

Noon briefing by Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. Highlights: Secretary-General Travel Security Council UNIFIL Lebanon Occupied Palestinian Territory Yemen Sudan Democratic Republic of the Congo Ethiopia Costa Rica Women in Diplomacy Guest Tomorrow SECRETARY-GENERAL TRAVEL The Secretary-General will be back in New York later today following his participation in London Climate Action Week. This morning, the Secretary-General addressed the Climate and Development Finance Forum 2026. The Secretary-General underscored that climate adaptation is no longer about preparing for a distant future. It’s about managing risks in real time, as the searing heat now gripping London and far beyond makes unmistakably clear. Also today, the Secretary-General addressed a Super Pollutants Reception. He noted that the climate crisis is accelerating, and we are now on course to overshoot the 1.5-degree limit in the coming years. Our task, the Secretary-General stressed, is to keep that overshoot as small, short, and safe as possible, and to bring temperatures back down. He said that can’t happen without drastically reducing emissions, starting now, and accelerating the shift away from fossil fuels, starting now. The Secretary-General stressed that it requires steps to end deforestation and protect nature, and it demands the world to move fast on super pollutants, the potent greenhouse gases that are behind nearly half the warming so far. He noted that methane is the super Super-pollutant, so cutting methane is the single fastest brake we can pull on a warming planet, adding that this is why he launched yesterday a global Call to Action on Methane. Before leaving London, the Secretary-General met Arsenio Dominguez, the Secretary-General of International Maritime Organization. The Secretary-General expressed his full support to IMO’s efforts to release the seafarers stranded in the Gulf. And last evening, the Secretary-General was awarded the Kew International Medal in recognition of his global leadership on climate change, biodiversity loss and collective action for people and planet. The Secretary-General said that he accepted the medal not for himself, but for the United Nations, and all those who work in the United Nations. SECURITY COUNCIL Vanessa Frazier, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, told the Security Council this morning that the United Nations Monitoring and Reporting mechanism verified 38,558 grave violations against children, affecting 24,174 children – which, she said, is the highest verified number of children affected by violations in any year since the establishment of the children and armed conflict mandate. The Special Representative warned that this year’s report shows that, for the first time, Government forces are the main perpetrators of grave violations against children overall, and specifically the killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and hospitals and the denial of humanitarian access. That is a profound and deeply troubling shift, she said. Ms. Frazier told the Council that the highest levels of violations in 2025 were verified in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Myanmar, and Somalia. She added that the growing integration of unmanned systems and artificial intelligence into warfare is transforming the conduct of hostilities. Unless accompanied by meaningful human oversight, she said, these technologies risk increasing harm to children and distancing decision-makers from the human consequences of war. Catherine Russell, the UNICEF Executive Director, told the Council about efforts taken by different governments – including in Colombia, Haiti and Syria – to improve the protection of children and end their recruitment for armed conflict. The Children and Armed Conflict framework works when there is political will, she said. Full Highlights: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date=2026-06-24