Press Conference

The upcoming United Nations Summit on Climate Change would be crucial in providing much-needed political momentum for negotiations on the issue as the deadline for an international deal loomed, Janos Pasztor, Director of the Secretary-General’s Climate Change Support Team, said at Headquarters this afternoon.

The real impact of the global financial and economic crisis had yet to be faced, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the General Assembly, said at Headquarters today.

The stage is set for upwards of 1,700 non-governmental organization representatives and experts from some 70 countries around the world to take a fresh look at how they can contribute to arms reduction while advancing the cause of peace in the world, reporters were told today at a Headquarters press conference.

Following is a transcript of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s press conference held in Geneva, 3 September:

For the first time in history, a President of the United States would chair a meeting of the Security Council, the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations said at a Headquarters press conference today.

Launching "The World Economic and Social Survey 2009: Promoting Development, Saving the Planet" at Headquarters today, a high-level official of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs said that pursuing the two goals of fighting climate change and simultaneously meeting development demands would require a global public policy agenda, as market mechanisms were not the most effective instruments to drive change.

The Central African Republic was at a critical crossroads which could see a reversal of the modest gains made in 2008 or a consolidation of the progress towards national dialogue and agreement with rebel groups, United Nations Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Catherine Bragg said at Headquarters today.

Senior United Nations Police officials today praised the work being carried out by female police officers in the world body’s peacekeeping missions, and urged Member States to deploy more women, who added a much-needed and unique perspective to police units, especially in building trust and serving as role models for local women and girls.

While the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue a warrant for the arrest of the President of Sudan had made the peace process more difficult and challenging, it had not really dislocated operations or had a drastic effect on the ground, General Martin Luther Agwai, Force Commander of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) said at Headquarters today.

Ahead of the Security Council’s adoption of a groundbreaking resolution on children and armed conflict, the top United Nations official on the issue, Radhika Coomaraswamy, and Claude Heller, Permanent Representative of Mexico, today hailed the resolution as a major step forward in the fight against impunity for crimes against children.