Closing summary
It’s 4pm Eastern time. Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
Humanity has “opened the gates to hell” by allowing the climate crisis to worsen, the secretary general of the United Nations António Guterres warned at the UN climate ambition summit. Guterres made a lacerating attack on wealthy countries and the fossil fuel industry for their ponderous response to the climate crisis.
The UN chief’s speech was undercut by the absence of many of the biggest carbon-emitting countries. The summit failed to attract the leaders of the two biggest carbon emitters, with neither Joe Biden, the US president, nor Xi Jinping, president of China, attending. Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, and Emmanuel Macron, the French president, were also missing the gathering.
In the UK, Rishi Sunak announced a major U-turn on the government’s climate commitments. In one of his biggest policy changes since taking office, Sunak confirmed the UK would push back the deadline for selling new petrol and diesel cars and the phasing out of gas boilers, a move met with despair by climate scientists and environmental experts.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the UN security council that the way to bring peace in Ukraine and to prevent further wars of aggression is through fundamental UN reform. The Ukrainian president argued that the war had demonstrated the need to limit veto power, give the UN general assembly the power to override vetoes, and expand the council’s permanent members beyond the current five powers.
China’s vice foreign minister, Ma Zhaoxu, said Beijing believes that the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected”. China has facilitated talks for peace “in its own way” and that Beijing has played a “positive and constructive role” in resolving the conflict in Ukraine, he told the security council.
Even the diplomats aren’t sugar-coating their ire. Former UN climate envoy Rachel Kyte, the dean emerita at Tufts University’s Fletcher school of law and diplomacy in Massachusetts, said:
Making net zero a scapegoat for years of the government mismanaging the economy and energy policy is a dangerous stunt … Incompetence – not net zero – has brought us to this point.
Meanwhile the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who’s been in New York this week, described Sunak’s U-turn as “utter chaos”.
Utter chaos, confusion and uncertainty from the Govt.
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) September 20, 2023
We’re in a climate emergency. Now is not the time to water down vital net zero measures.
The Govt are undermining business confidence and passing up a huge opportunity to reduce bills, create jobs & increase our prosperity.
Earlier this week Khan told the Guardian about the climate threats looming over the best city in the world (I’m a Londoner, but it’s true).
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How climate experts reacted to Rishi Sunak's climate announcement
As you might imagine, British prime minister Rishi Sunak’s sweeping rollback of green policies has gone down like a lead balloon in New York, where political leaders, diplomats, climate advocates and frontline community leaders are gathered for the UN summit and climate week.
Mohamed Adow, director of the respected Kenya-based thinktank Power Shift Africa who rarely minces his words, said:
This action from Rishi Sunak is a disgusting betrayal of vulnerable people around the world, not to mention economic vandalism upon his own country.
Mike Williams, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington based non-partisan policy thinktank, said:
With this announcement, PM Sunak is continuing the process started under Brexit to have the UK retreat from global leadership. Instead of providing real clarity, this will create confusion and uncertainty among businesses that could put existing and future jobs at risk.
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António Guterres opened the UN climate ambition summit with a lacerating attack on wealthy countries and the fossil fuel industry for their ponderous response to the climate crisis.
The UN secretary general said the world is “decades behind” in the transition to clean energy. “We must make up time lost to foot-dragging, arm-twisting and the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from fossil fuels,” Guterres said, adding that some fossil fuel companies had embarked upon a “shameful” attempt to stymie the transition.
Wealthy countries need to get their planet-heating emissions to net zero as close as possible to 2040, Guterres said, a task that a recent UN analysis found is well off track, as well as deliver promised climate funding to poorer, vulnerable nations that has so far been lacking.
Many of the poorest nations have every right to be angry, angry that they are suffering most from a climate crisis they did nothing to create, angry that promised finance hasn’t materialized and angry that their borrowing costs are sky high.
The latest spate of natural disasters – from the floods in Libya, Greece and Spain to the wildfires in Hawaii and Canada – has further underscored the need for early warning systems to help the world cope with the realities of the climate emergency, Spain’s environment minister has said.
Speaking to the Guardian as she prepared to travel to New York to take part in the UN’s climate ambition summit and sign a landmark treaty to protect the high seas, Teresa Ribera said the calamities laid bare the challenges the planet faced.
Ribera, who also serves as a deputy prime minister in Spain’s socialist-led caretaker government, urged those attending the summit to heed the UN secretary general’s calls for life-saving early warning systems to be put in place across the world over the next four years.
Given that 95% of the world’s population has access to mobile broadband networks – and nearly 75% own a mobile phone – experts say that harnessing cellular networks to deliver early warnings of impending disasters has the potential to save lives and significantly reduce damage.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy laid out proposals for UN reform as part of his 10-point peace plan. He supported a suggestion, which has been championed by France in the past, that in case of “mass atrocities against human rights” the veto powers of the permanent members – Russia, the US, UK, China and France – should be voluntarily suspended.
Anticipating that Russia would not relinquish its privilege, Zelenskiy argued the UN general assembly should have the power to override a security council veto, with a two-thirds majority.
The president also threw his weight behind widespread and growing calls for the expansion of the security council to accommodate more permanent members, giving broader representation for Asia, a seat for the African Union, the Islamic world, and Germany.
Over the past year, the US has also expressed support for security council reform. It is an issue that drives a wedge between Russia, China and the global south, including fellow members of the Brics group: Brazil, South Africa and India. Moscow and Beijing have historically been opposed to any changes in the status quo that would affect their veto.
Zelenskiy says only way to ensure peace is fundamental UN reform
Addressing the UN security council in New York, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the way to bring peace in Ukraine and to prevent further wars of aggression is through fundamental UN reform.
The Ukrainian president argued that the war had demonstrated the need to limit veto power, give the UN general assembly the power to override vetoes, and expand the council’s permanent members beyond the current five powers, who acquired their privileged position in the wake of the second world war.
The fact that Russia – the aggressor state in Ukraine – also has a veto to prevent the security council doing anything to stop the war, made a nonsense of the UN, he said.
“All the UN actions, either by the security council or by the general assembly, that could have stopped this aggression are shattered by the privilege granted to the aggressor with this seat,” Zelenskiy said.
We should recognise that the UN finds itself in a deadlock on the matters of aggression. Humankind no longer pins its hopes on the UN when it comes to the defence of the sovereign borders of nations.
In the current system, Zelenskiy said, the search for real solutions has been displaced by “aspirations to compromise with killers”.
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South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol said that if Russia helps North Korea advance its weapons program in exchange for its assistance in Russia’s war against Ukraine, then it would be a “direct provocation”, Reuters reports.
In his address to the UN general assembly, Yoon said:
“It is paradoxical that a permanent member of the UN security council, entrusted as the ultimate guardian of world peace, would wage war by invading another sovereign nation and receive arms and ammunition from a regime that blatantly violates UN security council resolutions,” he said.
“If [North Korea] acquires the information and technology necessary to enhance its WMD capabilities in exchange for supporting Russia with conventional weapons, the deal will be a direct provocation, threatening the peace and security of not only Ukraine, but also the Republic of Korea,” Yoon continued, saying, “The Republic of Korea, together with its allies and partners will not stand idly by.”
Yoon’s address comes just days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, during which Putin vowed to boost military cooperation amongst the two countries.
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Kausea Natano, the prime minister of Tuvalu, another nation which has contributed negligibly to global heating but is now facing an existential threat due to sea level rise and extreme weather events, said:
“Coal, oil and gas are responsible for 86% of carbon dioxide emissions that are causing sea level rise and the hottest average temperature we have ever seen. Fossil fuels undermine all seventeen of the Sustainable Development Goals and that includes our targets on health, on poverty reduction, and our peace and security.”
Worth noting that Britain, one of the world’s worst polluters, colonized and extracted resources from Barbados and Tuvalu (formerly part of the Ellice Islands).
Today, the British prime minister Rishi Sunak chose to scrap or delay a bunch of green targets rather than attend the UN climate summit.
Leaders of some of the world’s most climate vulnerable nations are connecting the dots between sustainable development, the climate emergency, and debt reduction - dots that most rich, polluting nations would rather not be connected.
Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, said:
“We have a call for a debt cancellation for all low income countries because if they are going to meet the SDGs and if they are going to do what is necessary for climate ambition, they have to be put in a position so to do.”
“It is painful to continue to see that you are asking us to increase borrowing to build resilient infrastructure for something that we did not do. And then at the same time, you want to also ensure that you have a loss and damage fund that does not have the adequate means for grant funding to be able to help countries rebuild. It is unconscionable, and it is almost a crime against humanity,” added Mottley.
Here is video of the moment Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on the UN security council to strip Russia of its veto power.
Zelenskiy said that Russia occupies its UN security council seat “illegally through backchannel manipulations following the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
Iraq’s prime minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani has invited NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg to visit Iraq based on his desire to do so, Reuters reports Iraq state media announcing on Wednesday.
The invitation from Sudani came during a sideline meeting between him and Stoltenberg during the UN General Assembly this week in New York.
China warns countries not to 'pour oil over fire' over Ukraine crisis
Ma Zhaoxu says China has facilitated talks for peace “in its own way” and that Beijing has played a “positive and constructive role” in resolving the conflict in Ukraine.
He says the Ukraine “crisis” – he does not refer it as a “war” during his speech – has become what it is today “for a variety of deep and complex reasons”.
A prolonged and expanded Ukraine crisis is in no one’s interest in light of the current situation.
Ma says it is “important to stick to the general direction of political settlement”, and calls to “avoid pouring oil over the fire”.
The parties to the conflict should strictly observe international humanitarian law, follow the principles of necessity, distinction and proportionality, protect civilians and civil infrastructure and provide rapid safe and unimpeded humanitarian access in order to lessen the suffering of civilians.
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China’s vice foreign minister, Ma Zhaoxu, tells the security council meeting on Ukraine that Beijing believes that the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected”.
He says the “legitimate” security concerns of all countries should be “taken seriously” and that all efforts should be made in “resolving the crisis”.
Ma points to the fact that China released its 12-point peace plan for Ukraine earlier this year, which called for dialogue, respect for all countries’ territorial sovereignty, and an end to economic sanctions. It also urged all parties to avoid nuclear escalation but critically did not suggest Russia withdraw its forces. The proposals were welcomed by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, at the time.
In one of the largest climate protests held since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, about 75,000 people marched through Manhattan on Sunday to call for an end to fossil fuels.
Protesters have targeted institutions that financially support the fossil fuel industry, with activists picketing the Bank of America and blocking access to the New York Federal Reserve.
The protesters “had a clear message for the Biden administration: stop sacrificing communities”, according to Ebony Twilley Martin, executive director of Greenpeace USA.
Overwhelmingly Americans don’t want this. We deserve a planet free from pollution and the devastating impacts it causes. Stop approving fossil fuel projects that hurt communities like mine – at home and abroad.
Britain’s deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden, who recently spoke at the UN security council meeting, flew on a near-empty RAF plane to attend the general assembly in New York, the Guardian has learned.
Dowden travelled on a 158-seat RAF Voyager with only a few advisers and defence personnel, sources said. The aircraft is usually used to transport senior ministers with large delegations of officials, journalists and occasionally business executives.
Dowden flew to New York on Tuesday to attend parts of the UN summit, where tackling climate crisis has been a key theme.
It comes as the UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, gave a speech rowing back on some of the government’s most significant climate policies.
It’s worth remembering that California governor Gavin Newsom didn’t always feel like this.
Rather he has been forced to shift his thinking on fossil fuels by the deepening climate emergency and the state’s climate activists and organizers, according to Antonia Juhasz, senior fossil fuels researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Governor Newsom has not always felt this way, nor advocated for taking on fossil fuels. This is the result of decades of organizing by California activists and workers, led by frontline communities esp. environmental justice communities most impacted by these ongoing operations.
— Antonia Juhasz (@AntoniaJuhasz) September 20, 2023
Gavin Newsom: 'climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis ... it's burning oil, gas and coal'
The unlikely star of the UN summit so far has arguably been the California governor Gavin Newsom, whose state has been battered by wildfires, floods and extreme heat in the past 12 months and where two insurance companies have pulled out due to the growing risk and tighter rules on premium hikes.
Perhaps that’s why Newsom decided to say it how it is:
The climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis. It’s not complicated; it’s the burning of oil, gas, and coal, and we need to call that out. For decades the oil industry has been playing each and every one of us for fools.
His speech was widely applauded by climate advocates as “unprecedented” including Harjeet Singh, the director of global engagement for the Fossil Fuel Treaty initiative.
UNPRECEDENTED - No political leader said it as is! 🔥
— Harjeet Singh (@harjeet11) September 20, 2023
"This #ClimateCrisis is a #FossilFuel crisis!"@GavinNewsom @CAgovernor
"It's the burning of oil, it's the burning of gas, it's the burning of coal, and we need to call that out!"#ClimateAmbitionSummit#UNGA #UNGA78 pic.twitter.com/nucV1n2hQa
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Zelenskiy leaves before Russia addresses UN security council
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, left the security council chamber after his remarks to the body. He is therefore not in the chamber to hear remarks by Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
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Sergei Lavrov accuses the US and its allies of “egregiously and openly” interfering in the domestic affairs of Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet union.
The Russian foreign minister claims “a litany of western leaders" have “directly encouraged” anti-government demonstrations and acts of violence, and that they have “denied the rights of Russian-language speakers in Ukraine and the residents of Crimea”.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the west of “selectively” turning to UN norms and principles on a case-by-case basis “based on their parochial geopolitical needs”.
Speaking at the UN’s security council, he says this has resulted in the “shaking of global stability” and the “exacerbation of new hotbeds of tensions” that risk global conflict.
Britain’s deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, said Russia’s victims include “the hungry and malnourished people of the developing world”.
The UK will contribute a further £3m to the World Food Programme, he said.
Of course, the only way to end this widespread suffering is through a just and lasting peace.
He said Ukraine has demonstrated their commitment to peace as well as that they can restore sovereignty and territorial integrity on the battlefield.
The UK’s deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, who is representing his country at the UN security council meeting, expressed solidarity with Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the people of Ukraine who have met Russia’s invasion “with bravery and with courage”.
Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s aggression is “not only a fight for freedom” but a “fight for the principles upon which the United Nations itself is based”, he said.
When Russia’s tanks rolled into Ukraine, they trampled over every single one of those principles. They have done so ever since.
Dowden warned of the “grave” risks if the world allows Russia to continue its war in Ukraine, pointing to the human cost of Russian aggression.
Ukraine has been suffering the terrible consequences of Russia’s war of choice. … Russia has callously targeted schools, hospitals, even playground.
UK rolls back on key green targets as it skips key statement on climate action
Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has announced a major rethink of his government’s climate policies, rolling back some of the UK’s most important green targets in one of his biggest policy U-turns in office.
At a press conference in Downing Street, the prime minister announced the UK would no longer plan to end the sale of new gas boilers by 2035, and would push back the deadline for selling new petrol and diesel cars by five years.
Meanwhile, the UK was notable by its absence from a key statement pledging ambitious action on the climate crisis, from a group of countries of which it is normally a leading member.
Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, told members of the UN security council that the international order based on the rule of law faces “an unprecedented crisis”.
He said he will “never forget the heartbreaking feelings I had at that time” when he visited Ukraine in March, and renewed his “determination that Japan stands with Ukraine”.
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has exacerbated concerns over a rule of lawlessness around the world. We must not allow the creation of a second or third Ukraine.
Kishida said Russia’s “abuse of the veto power'” to obstruct decisions by the security council “cannot be accepted by the international community”.
Richard Ratcliffe, husband of British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, said he was delighted that five Americans had been released by Iran this week as part of a complex wider deal. But he said:
It is really hard for those the US government left behind and still in harm’s way. It will be essential while the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, is still in New York that the US government gets assurances from him that those left behind are kept safe, if it hasn’t already got them, and that there are no more executions of foreign nationals for leverage.
He added:
The bigger picture is that the world needs to take its head out of the sand. For too long, western governments have been reluctant to acknowledge Iran’s hostage diplomacy, and talk instead of consular cases. Iran’s hostage enterprise has expanded and morphed into something more dangerous because it has been allowed to.
Siamak Namazi, one of the five Americans released as part of the recently announced US-Iran prisoner exchange, said:
It is only if the free world finally agrees to collectively impose draconian consequences on those who use human lives as mere bargaining chips that the Iranian regime and its ilk will be compelled to make difference choices.
On the day of the hostages’ release, the US censured Iran’s intelligence and security ministry for its involvement in the wrongful detention of US citizens, and the former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his support of the ministry.
The US defended the deal for the five on the basis that the $6bn released to Iran was Iranian money, and use of the cash in Iranian banks in Qatar would be monitored to ensure it was spent only for humanitarian purposes.
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UN inquiry into rights in Iran urged to look at detention of dual nationals
A UN inquiry into human rights in Iran has been asked to intervene in the growing detention of Iranian dual nationals and to identify the practice as unlawful state hostage-taking.
The inquiry, set up last November by the UN human rights council and being overseen by three lawyers, is due to report in March 2024. A submission from the Free Nazanin campaign, which worked for the release of the British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, warns the UN body that Iran is normalising the capture of dual nationals for use as diplomatic bargaining chips.
The submission says it has become an integral part of Iran’s abuse of human rights in the country. Iran has largely claimed the detainees are spies.
The exact number of dual nationals held in Iranian jails, mainly on spying charges, is unknown but the campaign estimates it is more than 30.
Here’s more from that meeting between the US president, Joe Biden, and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu – the first since Bibi returned to power in December.
Instead of a meeting at the White House – as preferred by Netayahu – the pair spoke a New York hotel ballroom on the sidelines of the UN general assembly.
Biden reiterated his commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, as he repeated his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The biggest issue on the agenda was the US-led push to forge diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and Biden signaled his commitment to the normalisation effort, which he said would have been unthinkable years ago.
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Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, who had a lot to say at the start of the UN security council session, appeared to look at his phone during most of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s remarks.
Zelenskiy says the security council should be “fully accountable” to UN member nations and that its permanent members should reflect the “current realities”.
Ukraine considers it “unjust” when billions of people do not have a permanent representative in the security council, while Russia does, he says.
He calls for “African unity” to have a permanent place in the council, and that Asia deserves broader permanent representation. Germany should also have a place among the permanent members of the council, he says, as well as the Pacific states.
Zelenskiy calls for Russia's veto power to be removed
Zelenskiy calls for the UN general assembly to be given power to overcome the veto power held by Russia, calling it a “necessary step”. He says:
It is impossible to stop the war because all efforts are vetoed by the aggressor.
Proposing an overhaul of the UN’s security council to broaden membership, he says Ukraine considers it “unjust” when billions of people do not have a permanent representative in the security council, while Russia does.
He says:
World leaders are seeking new platforms and alliances that could reduce the disastrous scope of problems, the problems that are met here within these walls with rhetoric rather than real solutions with aspirations to compromise with killers, rather than to protect lives.
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Zelenskiy says “unfortunately, this seat in the security council, which Russia occupies illegally” has been taken by “liars whose job is to whitewash the aggression and the genocide” carried out by Russia in Ukraine.
He says the current UN system means that other UN members are less influential than the veto power of Russia.
These days, in the general assembly, we hear the world inequality too often. Inequality is mentioned by different nations, both larger and smaller. That is precisely the inequality that renders the UN ineffective.
He goes on:
I know that the UN is capable of more. I’m confident that the UN Charter can actually work. for the sake of peace and security globally.
However, for this to happen, the years-long discussions and projects on UN reform must be translated into a viable process of UN reform, and it should not be only about representation here in the security council, the use of veto power.
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Zelenskiy says “most of the world” recognises that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are “criminal and unprovoked” and aimed at seizing Ukrainian territory and resources.
He says he is grateful to all countries who have recognised Russian aggression as a violation of UN charter, but that it has “changed nothing” for Russia in the UN. He says the UN has found itself “in a deadlock on the matters of aggression”.
Humankind no longer [keeps] its hopes on the UN when it comes to the defence of the sovereign borders of nations.
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Zelenskiy addresses UN security council session on Ukraine war
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, begins his address to the UN’s security council by saying that there have been 574 days of “pain, losses and struggle” since Russia’s invasion of his county.
Russia has killed at least tens of thousands of Ukrainians and turned millions into refugees, Zelenskiy says.
António Guterres says Russia’s war in Ukraine has killed or injured tens of thousands of civilians, destroyed lives and livelihoods, traumatised a generation of children, and torn families and communities apart.
I urge all countries to do their part to prevent further escalation and to lay the foundations for sustainable peace.
We are fully committed to the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.
The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, tells members of the security council that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a “clear violation of the United Nations Charter”.
Russia’s actions in Ukraine are “aggravating geopolitical tensions and divisions, increasing the nuclear threat, and creating deep fissures in our increasingly multipolar worlds”, he says.
The UN has been clear in condemning the war, and the general assembly “overwhelming” approved a resolution demanding that Russia leave Ukraine, and rejecting Russia’s efforts to annex Ukrainian territory, he said.
Biden meets Netanyahu to discuss 'democratic values'
We will discuss “democratic values”, Joe Biden told Benjamin Netanyahu at a meeting on the sidelines of the United nations general assembly in New York.
The US president met with the Israeli prime minister in their first face-to-face meeting since Netanyahu came back to power in at the end of 2022.
Biden reaffirmed the US’s commitment to Israel’s security, describing it as “ironclad”, but added that the pair would also discuss “democratic values” and “checks and balances,” a not so subtle allusion to Netanyahu’s planned changes to Israel’s judiciary. “I hope we can get some things settled today,” said Biden.
Biden previously criticised Netanyahu’s controversial plan to overhaul Israel’s judicial system, triggering a rare public spat between the countries. Netanyahu responded:
We will continue to uphold the values both our democracies cherish.
Biden also said he would discuss the two-state solution with Palestinians, amid speculation of a possible US-brokered deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia to normalise ties.
Netanyahu welcomed Biden’s efforts telling reporters:
I believe that under your leadership, we can forge a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia. And I think such a peace would go a long way for us to advance the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
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Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama, told Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, that his objections were “quite impressive” considering Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Addressing Nebenzya directly, he said:
I must say that, coming from you, all this lecture of violating the rules in this building is quite an impressive shoot.
But as far as you repeat it many times that the violation here is about President Zelenskiy.
Speaking before the council members, there is a solution for this: If you agree, you will stop the war and President Zelenskiy will not take the floor.
Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, challenged the Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the UN’s security council, to explain “on what basis you propose to give (Ukraine’s President} Volodymyr Zelenskiy the floor”. Ukraine is not member of the security council.
Rama replied by saying that giving Zelenskiy the floor first will allow council members to respond to his remarks. Rama said:
Those who have a direct interest in the outcome of the matter under consideration may speak prior to council members if appropriate.
Nebenzya responded by warning that “if today you bang the gavel thereby implementing your decision, the Albanian presidency will be tainted”.
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A special session of the UN’s security council on the war in Ukraine has begun.
The debate is titled “Upholding the purposes and principles of the UN Charter through effective multilateralism: maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine”.
You can watch it live below:
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A special session of the UN’s security council is scheduled to begin at 11am Eastern time, attended by foreign ministers of the 15 members of the council, including Russia’s Sergei Lavrov.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will speak at the session, where he is expected to give further details of his peace plan.
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'Humanity has opened the gates of hell': UN chief criticises lack of climate action
The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, said that “humanity has opened the gates of hell” by unleashing worsening heatwaves, floods and wildfires seen around the world but that action to prevent the worst was still possible. “The future of humanity is in our hands,” he said.
We must turn up the tempo, turn plans into action and turn the tide.
The climate ambition summit has invited more than 100 countries to spell out fresh plans to tackle the climate crisis and help people adapt to its impacts, in a bid to generate momentum ahead of Cop28 in November.
Tellingly, however, many of the world’s leading carbon emitters are not present, with the leaders of the US, UK, France and China absent. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, was scheduled to speak at the event but fell ill shortly before the summit started.
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António Guterres has just opened the UN climate ambition summit with a lacerating attack on wealthy countries and the fossil fuel industry for the ponderous response to the climate crisis.
The UN secretary general said the world is “decades behind” in the transition to clean energy. “We must make up time lost to foot dragging, arm twisting and the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from fossil fuels,” Guterres said, adding that some fossil fuel companies had embarked upon a “shameful” attempt to stymie the transition.
Wealthy countries need to get their planet-heating emissions to net zero as close as possible to 2040, Guterres said, a task that a recent UN analysis found is well off track, as well as deliver promised climate funding to poorer, vulnerable nations. He said:
Many of the poorest nations have every right to be angry, angry that they are suffering most from a climate crisis they did nothing to create, angry that promised finance hasn’t materialized and angry that their borrowing costs are sky high.
UN chief criticizes world leaders for 'abysmally short' efforts to curb global warming
The UN’s climate ambition summit comes a day after the UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, criticised world leaders for coming up “abysmally short” in their efforts to stem global heating.
During his speech opening the UN general assembly in New York on Tuesday, Guterres demanded a climate solidarity pact in which all big emitters make extra efforts to cut emissions and wealthier countries support emerging economies with finance and technology to do so. He said:
Africa has 60% of the world’s solar capacity but just 2% of renewable investments.
Guterres called for “an end to coal – by 2030 for OECD countries and 2040 for the rest of the world”. He said the floods in Libya were “a snapshot of the state of our world” and a sign of what happens when climate change meets poor governance.
A recent UN analysis of country’s actions to reduce planet-heating emissions show the world is well off track to avoid breaching agreed temperature limits, unleashing worsening heatwaves, droughts and floods.
As part of #UNGA, I am convening a Climate Ambition Summit for governments, business, local authorities & civil society.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) September 18, 2023
It’s time to demonstrate credible leadership & ambitious #ClimateAction to cut emissions & protect lives from the impacts of the climate crisis. pic.twitter.com/PPyVvvk9sP
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Leaders of world’s biggest polluting countries skip UN climate summit
Leaders of some of the world’s biggest polluting countries are skipping a UN summit on Wednesday aimed at generating some progress in the spluttering effort to address the climate crisis, during what may be the hottest year ever recorded.
The climate ambition summit, convened by António Guterres, the UN’s secretary general, will feature more than 100 national governments who have traveled to New York to outline renewed plans to curb global heating and help people adapt to its impacts. The UN has said the event will “showcase first movers and doers” among countries most willing to act on the climate crisis.
But the summit has failed to attract the leaders of the two biggest carbon emitters, with neither Joe Biden, the US president, nor Xi Jinping, president of China, attending. Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, and Emmanuel Macron, the French president, are also missing the gathering.
Human rights abuses are still being committed in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region more than 10 months after a ceasefire formally ended the bloody civil war, according to a report by the UN’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia released on Monday.
The latest report said the nation’s government was failing to protect its citizens from “grave and ongoing” human rights abuses being committed by militias and Eritrean troops, who fought alongside Ethiopia’s federal military and remain in border areas of Tigray.
These human rights abuses include sexual and gender-based violence “abetted or tolerated” by the Ethiopian government, and that a “transitional justice” process initiated by Ethiopia’s government did not meet international standards and expressed alarm over recent increases in violence in Oromia and Amhara, Ethiopia’s two most populous regions.
The failure to implement a meaningful justice process was fostering a culture of impunity and heightening the risk of future atrocities, said the experts, who noted rising online hate speech in Ethiopia against ethnic and political groups and LGBT people.
Poland summons Ukrainian ambassador over Zelenskiy's UN remarks
Poland’s foreign ministry summoned the Ukrainian ambassador over remarks by Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the UN general assembly on Tuesday.
As we reported earlier, the Ukrainian leader appeared to criticise allies like Poland whose expressions of solidarity were “political theatre” and who were, by restricting imports from Ukraine, “helping set the stage for a Moscow actor”.
A statement by the Polish foreign ministry reads:
(Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski) conveyed the Polish side’s strong protest against the statements made by President V. Zelenskiy at the UN General Assembly yesterday, alleging that some EU countries feigned solidarity while indirectly supporting Russia.
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Iran accuses US of stoking Ukraine war in UN speech
On the day of Ebrahim Raisi’s speech to the UN general assembly, the US imposed new sanctions on individuals and entities from Iran, China, Russia and Turkey, after Russian troops launched a new massive drone attack on Ukrainian cities.
The fresh restrictions from the US treasury department targeted seven individuals and four entities linked with Iran’s unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and military aircraft development. According to the Ukrainian air force, Russian troops launched 30 Shahed-136/131 drones and one Iskander-M missile toward Ukrainian cities on the night of 19 September. Three drones hit industrial warehouses in Lviv, killing one person.
Raisi accused America of stoking the war in Ukraine to weaken Europe. He said:
If they have a document that Iran gave weapons or drones to the Russians after the war, then they should produce it.
We are against the war and we are ready to mediate in order to end it, but the taxes of the American people are spent on war-making and filling the pockets of arms factories from the place of arms sales in this field.
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The Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, addressed UN ambassadors at the annual general assembly on Tuesday where he accused America of fanning the flames of violence in Ukraine, prompting protests from Israel’s representative to the UN.
Raisi claimed any Iranian-made drones hitting Ukrainian cities had been sold before the war started and said he was in favour of peace in Ukraine, on the same day that Tehran hosted a Russian defence delegation led by its defence minister, Sergei Shoigu.
While he gave a lengthy speech to delegates, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, walked out holding up an image of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who died in police custody for not wearing the hijab correctly in 2022.
Outside, protesters displayed pictures of Iranians killed by the regime. Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian opposition figure who leads the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), said Raisi’s hands were tainted with the blood of thousands of MEK members killed in 1988.
The issue of an invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu split Joe Biden’s advisers, ultimately leading to a compromise of the meeting on the sidelines of the UN general assembly on Wednesday, according to an Axios report.
A meeting in the White House, it was argued, would signal approval and reward for Israeli government policy.
In addition to a deep unease about the judicial overhaul being pushed by Netanyahu’s hardline coalition partners, Biden’s administration has also expressed frustration with accelerating Israeli settlement growth in the occupied West Bank, which the international community considers a major obstacle to peace with the Palestinians and a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict.
The Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced earlier this month that he would visit the US, Israel’s staunchest ally, which donates billions in military aid to the country each year.
Initially, however, no meetings with US officials were announced – an anomaly for visiting Israeli prime ministers. Netanyahu, who grew up between Jerusalem and the US city of Philadelphia, frequently boasts of his close connection to the US to bolster his platform both at home and abroad.
Joe Biden said earlier this year that he had no intention of sitting down with Netanyahu “in the near term”, before his office said in July that a meeting had been agreed. Netanyahu’s office was quick to announce that he had been invited to meet the president in the US, but the Biden administration pointedly declined to call it an invitation and did not specify where the leaders would meet.
The snub was emphasised when Biden welcomed Israel’s figurehead president, Isaac Herzog, to the White House in July.
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Biden to meet Netanyahu at UN in awkward rapprochement
Nine months after returning to office, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is finally getting his long sought-after meeting with Joe Biden – but an awkward rapprochement at the UN general assembly is unlikely to improve the strained relationship between the two leaders.
The US president is scheduled to meet Netanyahu in New York on Wednesday, the White House said on Friday.
The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the two leaders would “discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues focused on the shared democratic values between the United States and Israel and a vision for a more stable and prosperous and integrated region, as well as to compare notes on effectively countering and deterring Iran”.
Sullivan’s reference to shared democratic values was a reference to deep unease in Biden’s White House about the judicial overhaul being pushed by Netanyahu’s hardline coalition partners, which it sees as an assault on the judiciary’s independence. The proposals have been greeted by the largest protest movement in Israeli history, including unprecedented declarations from thousands of military reservists that they wish to be released from service.
That has been the primary factor in Biden’s refusal to meet Netanyahu so far during the Israeli prime minister’s current term, and the principal reason there will not be the meeting in the White House that Netanyahu sought.
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Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s speech referring to “some of our friends in Europe” whose expressions of solidarity were “political theatre” came a day after Ukrainian officials said Kyiv plans to sue Poland, Hungary and Slovakia in the World Trade Organization over bans on Ukrainian agricultural products.
Restrictions imposed by the EU earlier this year allowed Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia to ban domestic sales of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds, while permitting transit of such cargoes for export elsewhere.
On Friday, the EU allowed its ban to expire after Ukraine said it would take measures to tighten control of exports to neighbouring countries.
In response, Warsaw, Bratislava and Budapest announced their own restrictions on Ukrainian grain imports.
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Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, accused Russia of weaponising food and energy during his speech to the UN general assembly on Tuesday, noting “there are many conventions that restrict weapons but there are no real restrictions on weaponisation”.
He explained how Ukraine and its partners were trying to work around the Russian blockade of Black Sea ports, but he had bitter criticism for Ukraine’s neighbours who have periodically blocked the export of Ukrainian produce westwards for fear it would compete with domestic output and lower prices.
He said “some of our friends in Europe” whose expressions of solidarity were “political theatre” were, by restricting imports from Ukraine, “helping set the stage for a Moscow actor”.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s speech to the UN general assembly on Tuesday was watched from the Russian seats in the chamber by Moscow’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, who wrote in a notebook from time to time and occasionally grinned.
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'Clearly a genocide': Zelenskiy accuses Russia of abducting tens of thousands of Ukrainian children
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, dressed in an olive green long-sleeved polo shirt, used the word “genocide” to refer to the abduction of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children by Russian occupation authorities, who the Ukrainian president said were being brainwashed into hating their homeland.
“Never before has mass kidnapping and deportation become a part of the government policy. Not until now,” Zelenskiy said on Tuesday, adding that the Ukrainian government knew of the names of tens of thousands of abducted children and had “evidence of hundreds of thousands of others kidnapped by Russia in the occupied territories of Ukraine and later deported”.
The international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and a top aide for their involvement in ordering the child deportations.
Zelenskiy said:
We are trying to get the children back home, but time goes by and what will happen to them? Those children in Russia are taught to hate Ukraine and all ties with their families are broken. And this is clearly a genocide.
He added: “When hatred is weaponized against one nation, it never stops there.”
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Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the UN general assembly on Tuesday that Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine and urged world leaders to attend a peace summit to help stop the invasion and future wars of aggression.
Appearing in the assembly chamber in New York for the first time in person, the Ukrainian president used the opportunity to try to galvanise support for his country’s plight among many countries, especially in the global south, many of whom have sought to sit on the fence in the face of the full-scale Russian invasion.
Zelenskiy said he would give further details of his peace plan, based on national sovereignty and territorial integrity, at a special session of the security council on Wednesday. He said all leaders “who do not tolerate any aggression” would be invited to a peace summit. He did not say when or where the meeting would be held, but he has previously expressed the hope it would happen by autumn this year.
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Zelenskiy to speak at UN security council meeting as Biden meets Netanyahu
Good morning and welcome to our live blog covering the 78th session of the United Nations general assembly, where world leaders convene in New York amid a backdrop of the war in Ukraine, high food prices, a series of climate-related catastrophes, new political crises in west Africa and Latin America and economic instability.
For a second day, heads of state and government from at least 145 countries are expected to take the dais at this year’s general assembly, presided over by Trinidad and Tobago’s Dennis Francis.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is set to take part in a special UN security council session on Russia’s war in his country, which is also due to be attended by the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Asked whether he’d remain seated at the 15-member body’s horseshoe-shaped table if Lavrov speaks, Zelenskiy told reporters on Monday: “I don’t know how it will be, really.”
On Tuesday, in his first in person address to the UN general assembly since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Zelenskiy accused Russia of committing genocide in Ukraine and urged world leaders to attend a peace summit to help stop the invasion and future wars of aggression. He said he would give further details of his peace plan, based on national sovereignty and territorial integrity, at Wednesday’s special session.
Meanwhile, US president Joe Biden is scheduled to meet the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, today, in a long-anticipated meeting amid a strained relationship between the two leaders. Biden and Netanyahu – who returned to office nine months ago – will “discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues focused on the shared democratic values between the United States and Israel and a vision for a more stable and prosperous and integrated region, as well as to compare notes on effectively countering and deterring Iran”, a White House spokesperson said.
