“The near poor are becoming the new poor” as a result of the global financial crisis, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations said today at Headquarters, as she announced the development of the United Nations Global Impact and Vulnerability Alert System, or “GIVAS”.

The sixty-fourth session of the General Assembly appeared to be off to a strong start as the 192-member body had adopted its agenda –- without reservations –- in less than an hour, newly installed Assembly President Ali Abdussalam Treki (Libya) said at Headquarters today.

During a press conference at United Nations Headquarters this morning, Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma declared that “capitalist lifestyles” were at the root of climate change problems, as he discussed key proposals to protect the environment and bring to justice those who contributed to pollution.

The Government of Denmark had embarked on ground-breaking initiatives aimed at opening up debate to citizens of the world in the lead-up to and during the course of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December, Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said today at Headquarters.

“We are well beyond the sweeping rhetoric of embedded positions and well into discussion of solutions,” János Pásztor, Director of the Secretary-General’s Climate Change Support Team, said at a Headquarters press conference today.

The wait-and-see attitude adopted by many countries with regard to action to address climate change was putting the process at risk and making it less and less easy to ensure a fair and just climate treaty offering something to the world, especially the poorest parts, René Grotenhuis, President of the CIDSE Network of Catholic Development Agencies, said today at Headquarters.

Middle East Quartet Special Envoy Tony Blair, along with Norway’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, briefed correspondents today at Headquarters on the work of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, and the status of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Reaching agreement at the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Conference on a new pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be a “daunting” challenge, but not an impossible one, Al Gore told correspondents today during a press conference of the United Nations Leadership Forum on Climate Change.

The international community must set stronger targets to curb the pollution causing global warming and act to address new industrial threats to a rapidly melting Arctic environment, Prince Albert II of Monaco said today at a Headquarters press conference, where he was joined by fellow members of the Aspen Institute Commission on Arctic Climate Change.

“Now is your moment to act,” the Secretary-General told the nearly 100 world leaders gathered today for the high-level Summit on Climate Change that he has convened with the aim of mobilizing political will for a fair, effective and ambitious climate deal.