Environmental issues and sustainable development

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the 2021 Petersberg Climate Dialogue today:

The Forum on Forests, meeting via video-teleconference, continued its sixteenth session today with speakers discussing the progress achieved so far in launching the Global Forest Financing Facilitation Network clearing house, as well as monitoring, assessment and reporting issues.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, with support from the World Health Organization and other partners, has launched a yellow fever vaccination campaign targeting more than 16.3 million people in the country, the first such drive against the disease in Africa this year.

The Forum on Forests focused on ways to better implement the United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests and its six global forest goals, particularly in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the upcoming fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, on the second day of its sixteenth session today.

Progress in protecting the world’s forests — and the people who rely on them — is at risk due to the devastating impacts of the coronavirus and the escalating climate and biodiversity crises, according to a new report released today by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

The Forum on Forests began its sixteenth session in a virtual format today with the launch of its inaugural Global Forest Goals Report, as speakers highlighted the myriad ways in which the world’s forests, if sustainably managed, can contribute to “building back better” from the COVID-19 pandemic while also achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, to the high-level round table on major forest-related developments, at the sixteenth session of the United Nations Forum on Forests, held today:

The first members of the International Organization for Migration’s emergency response team arrived in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines today to deliver essential shelter and emergency items to thousands of people forcibly displaced after the eruption of La Soufrière volcano.

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message for the European Union-Africa Green Investment Forum, today:

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it will launch an operation to reach up to 2 million vulnerable people in Myanmar’s main cities and other areas where people have recently been uprooted.  WFP estimates that 3.4 million more people will be hungry within the next six months, amid the ongoing effects of poverty, COVID-19 and political crisis.