UN candidate Grossi: states won’t fund UN expansion indefinitely. Rafael Grossi is seeking to succeed the UN chief António Guterres at a time when the multilateral organisation is facing an acute crisis. He is relying on his experience at the International Atomic Energy Agency to distinguish himself from his rivals.

🎗️BATTLING FOR SURVIVAL. The UN’s high-level meeting on HIV and Aids, held every five years, will take place today and tomorrow in New York, as progress fighting the epidemic faces serious setbacks from drastic aid cuts.

Meanwhile its own dedicated agency, UNAids, has been decimated – the global staff cut from over 600 to under 300. At its Geneva head office, only a handful remain after staff were cut from 127 to 19 – and many of those relocated to Bonn.

The mission. UN member states will be tasked with coming up with a new UN Political Declaration, which will establish the direction of the global HIV response for the next five years.
But this will be no small task.

In his report issued on 4 June ahead of the meeting, UN chief Guterres warned the Aids response was at a “critical juncture” as funding cuts, rising debt burdens, conflicts and humanitarian emergencies threatened to reverse the “historic gains” of the past decades.

In numbers. Some 31.6 million of the 40.8 million people living with HIV were on treatment in 2024, the highest number ever recorded, Guterres’ report shows. Meanwhile, Aids‑related deaths have fallen by 54 per cent since 2010, reaching their lowest level since the early 1990s.

Missing the target. In 2024 around 630,000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses – double the 2025 target set in the last political declaration in 2021, of 250,000.

🌍ARDUOUS CLIMATE ROUTE TO TURKEY. With last week’s mid-year UN climate conference in Bonn ending in a deadlock over key finance, mitigation and adaptation targets, negotiators face a heavy workload heading to the Cop31 in November – arriving with disagreements still unresolved.

Penny-pinching. A bid to triple climate finance by 2025 agreed in Belém at the Cop30 was a major stumbling block in the German city, disappointing developing countries, which see it as key to adapting to the rising impacts of climate change.

Same old. Fossil-fuel producing nations, in particular, pushed back on advancing emissions mitigation, further prolonging a stalemate over the issue, that has been ongoing since Cop27.

In April, talks in Santa Marta, Colombia to transition away from fossil fuels, attended by 57 states, signalled a splintering of diplomatic efforts among countries eager to accelerate climate action.

Read more on our coverage from Santa Marta here.

Rule 16. Amid the gridlock, the African group of nations drew a line on talks, invoking a rule to move negotiations on the unresolved issues to Antalya.

— By Paula Dupraz-Dobias and Kasmira Jefford