Despite low expectations for the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, currently under way in Durban, South Africa, a positive outcome of that meeting would advance the global climate change agenda and help world leaders better address broader sustainable development issues in the coming year, a senior United Nations policy adviser said this afternoon.

Marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development, the Secretary-General said we are at a decisive moment in history. As calls for change echo across the world, we cannot take refuge in silence. Leaders must respond to the demands of people who seek to build their own future.

Extremely concerned about the millions in Yemen and the Philippines who were currently facing a severe and worsening humanitarian crisis, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Catherine Bragg briefed correspondents at Headquarters today on her recent missions to those countries.

The Security Council work programme for December would contain 18 open meetings — including 2 debates, 11 briefings and 5 meetings to adopt draft resolutions — as well as 20 closed consultations, Council President Vitaly Churkin (Russian Federation) said at Headquarters today.

At the conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany, the Secretary-General acknowledged that the challenges ahead for the country are large, but stressed that we will not be deterred. He said the United Nations will be there for Afghanistan. It was there well before 2001 and will be there far beyond 2014.

At the Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, the Secretary-General said we must be realistic about expectations for a breakthrough. But he said he expects advances, starting with implementing Cancún agreements and progress on short- and long-term financing.

At a high-level event in Durban on climate financing, the Secretary-General said there was a long way to go towards mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020. The challenge now was getting a scaled-up climate finance system up and running.

The security of the border between Sudan and South Sudan remains of concern, and the United Nations continues to believe that the establishment of the joint border monitoring mechanism is indeed needed to build confidence, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations told the Security Council this morning.

Showing sad parallels with the climate crisis, the effects of the financial and economic crisis had been felt most seriously by those in no way responsible for it, Roberto Bissio, Coordinator of the non-governmental organization Social Watch, said at Headquarters today.

Recent events in Tunis, Cairo, Madrid, New York and hundreds of other cities and towns across the globe demonstrated that “the voice of ordinary people has been raised and their demands made clear”, Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said at Headquarters today.