Good morning, this is Gabriela. As the climate crisis batters rich and poor countries alike, UN officials in Geneva are now laser-focused on lessening the crisis' harshest blows. With UN predictions warning that natural disasters could surge dramatically by 2030, officials and countries' top concern is now making sure they can get people out of harm’s way.

Meanwhile, work on the UN’s Summit of the Future has been put on the back burner as global south countries urge leaders to first focus on delivering on failing 2030 goals. And the WHO adopted a landmark proposal on fighting plastic pollution, paving the way for better data to protect the environment.

Gabriela Galindo

31.05.2023

On our radar

Aftermath of cyclone Idai in Mozambique, Africa. Since Idai's landing in 2019, Mozambique has made significant strides in improving its early warning systems, helping it mitigate the blow of natural catastrophes since. (KEYSTONE/LAIF/Juergen Escher)

As climate crisis rages on, UN scrambles to help countries duck disaster. In the eye of the climate storm, small island nations and developing countries are racing to beef up their defences against natural disasters, as the UN warns disastrous events could top 500 by 2030 if warming trends continue unchanged.

Mozambique's transport and communications minister told Geneva Solutions that improvements in the country's disaster management system helped it weather the landing of Cyclone Freddy earlier this year, the most powerful cyclone ever recorded.

Geneva Solutions (EN)

Here’s what else is happening

✋ Exclusive: global south thwarts UN future summit plans. Rather than jumping on another grand project, developing countries argued that the UN’s leadership should focus on delivering on its crisis-hit Sustainable Development Goals.
Devex (EN)
🥡 Landmark resolution on chemical pollution passes World Health Assembly. The watershed move, spearheaded by Peru, means the WHO will now produce data on the hot-button issue of the health impacts of pollution from chemicals and waste.
Health Policy Watch (EN)
🇺🇳 Stateless Rohingya could soon be the ‘new Palestinians’, top UN official warns. Olivier De Schutter, special rapporteur on extreme poverty, said the global community should not look away from the Rohingya’s plight.
The Guardian (EN)
❗Lavrov warns West: Black Sea grain deal is in danger of collapse. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that the grain deal was no longer functioning, as Moscow’s fertiliser exports demands had not been addressed “at all”.
Reuters (EN)
🧒 Red Cross exhibit shows child’s memories of Kosovo war. Kosovar visual artist Petrit Halilaj’s exhibit shares his childhood vision of the war through the same drawings he presented to former UN chief, Kofi Annan, decades earlier.
Tribune de Genève (FR)

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