The last century, scientists confirmed the alarming reality of significant depletion in the ozone layer – an invisible gas shield that surrounds the earth and protects it from the UV rays of the sun.

The collection of substances depleting ozone included CFC, or chlorofluorocarbons, which in the mid -1980s were commonly found in everyday products such as air conditioners, refrigerators and aerosol cans.

Science has led to global action. Realizing that harmful UV radiation led into the atmosphere through what was potentially a damaged ozone layer, the countries were committed under the Vienna Convention in 1985, to do what was necessary for the protection of the people and the planet.

“” The Vienna Convention and its Montreal Protocol have become a benchmark for multilateral success“Said the UN secretary general António Guterres in a message for World Ozone Day this year.

“Today, the ozone layer heals,” he said.

What is the Vienna Convention?

Forty years ago, the countries met to take the first step in protecting the ozone layer, “guided by science, united in action,” continued the UN chief.

THE Vienna Convention For the protection of the ozone layer, adopted and signed by 28 countries on March 22, 1985, formalizes universal cooperation on the protection of the fragile layer of ozone.

It is the first treaty to be signed by all countries of the world and the precursor of the Montreal Protocol.

The objective of the Montreal Protocol is to monitor the world’s production and consumption of substances that exhaust the ozone layer – and ultimately eliminate them.

Multilateralism at its best

In a video messageInger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (Dive), stressed that through action under conventions, “exhausting ozone substances have now been practically eradicated and the hole in the ozone layer is closed.”

After scientists sounded the alarm, countries, nations and businesses met and took measures for the planet.

” It is multilateralism to its very, better“, She added.

The Montreal Protocol progresses well in developed and developing countries with most elimination hours – the time given for each country to gradually stop the production of harmful substances – adhered or even exceeded.

“” This achievement reminds us that when the nations take into account the warnings of science, progress is possible“Said Mr. Guterres.

Following online, the Kigali amendment

In his message, Mr. Guterres urged governments to ratify and implement the Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which undertakes to reduce or reduce hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), greenhouse gases used mainly in cooling technologies.

“The implementation of the Kigali amendment could avoid up to 0.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century,” he said. “Combined with energy -efficient cooling, we could double these gains. »»

As indicated in the Paris AgreementCountries have agreed to try to limit the increase in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“On this World Ozone Day, recommend preserving our ozone layer and protecting people and the planet for future generations,” said the UN chief.

Speaking on Tuesday at a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York, he warned that global divisions, conflicts and crises have left the very principle of international cooperation to its most fragile point in decades.

“Some call it the diplomacy World Cup,” said Guterres.

” But It is not a question of scoring points – it must be a question of solving problems. There is too much at stake.“”

Drifting in unexplored waters

The United Nations has described a world drifting in “turbulent and unexplored waters”, listing the widening of geopolitical divisions, climate climate change, gap technologies and the increase in inequalities, such as challenges that require urgent solutions.

“” International cooperation is handed under the invisible pressure of our life,He said.

Nearly 150 heads of state and government are expected in New York next week, alongside thousands of civil servants and diplomats.

Mr. Guterres said that he would personally hold more than 150 bilateral meetings, pressing managers “to speak directly, to fold the divisions, reduce risks, find solutions”.

The key themes of the chef’s UN

The secretary general underlined peace, climate, responsible innovation, gender equality, development of development and UN reform as central themes of the week.

He called for urgent stages to end wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and beyond, and reiterated the need for “just and lasting peace in the Middle East on the basis of a two-state solution”.

On the climate, he urged countries to advance stronger national plans to maintain global warming below the 1.5 ° C threshold envisaged in the 2015 benchmark Paris Agreement On climate change – which seems more and more out of reach.

He also announced the launch of a global dialogue on AI governance to ensure that technology is developing with advantages to humanity “at the center”.

More “posture and promises”

The week will also feature a very first biennial summit bringing together international financial institutions and world leaders to advance commitments on the financing of Sustainable development objectives (ODD) – which are seriously off track – as well as the commemorations of the 30th anniversary of the Beijing historical conference on gender equality.

“” The list is long because the needs are excellent,“Said Mr. Guterres, adding that current world crises do not ask for” posture and promises “but that leadership that is committed to making concrete progress.

He concluded with a frank call: “The United Nations is the place. Next week is the time. Managers must become serious – and deliver.“”

On the basis of two years of independent investigations and analyzes, the report reveals how oil and non -oil income are siphoned by opaque regimes and politically connected contracts. Meanwhile, millions of South Sudanese are denied the basic services.

“Our report tells the story of the looting of a nation: corruption is not incidental, it is the engine of the decline of South Sudan”, “,” said Yasmin Sooka, president of the committee.

“It stimulates hunger, the collapse of health systems and causes avoidable deaths, as well as the food of fatal armed conflicts on resources.”

Embezzlement

After obtaining independence in 2011, South Sudan came out of the decades of brutal civil war with Sudan, bearing a legacy of division conflict, state repression and poverty.

Fourteen years after independence, the ruling elites still fight for control of natural resources.

The report noted that the Sudanese government’s oil entrances have exceeded $ 25.2 billion since 2011, but that little money is not going to essential services. Due to systemic corruption, education, public health and justice systems are in crisis.

“Diversions are not abstract budget failures – they translate into avoidable deaths, general malnutrition and mass exclusion from education,” said Commissioner Carlos Castresana Fernández.

“Three -quarters of the deaths for children are avoidable – but the funds go to the patronage and private pockets, not to drugs or drinking water and sanitation.”

Multiple corruption patterns

The “Oil for Roads” program is only one of the corruption patterns described in the report. The program intended to build infrastructure but failed to deliver promised roads. It is estimated that $ 2.2 billion was channeled in political patronage networks thanks to the off -budget program.

The report also details Crawford Capital’s diets, a politically connected company, in non -petroleum income recovery, where few taxes reach government budgets, even if illegal levies on humanitarian actors hinder critical food aid operations.

A need for change

A 2018 peace agreement promised a structural change and an improvement in public financial management, but the reform has not been funded or implemented adequately.

Priority to the implementation of certain reforms under the agreement is one of the many recommendations that the report presents for South Sudan. The 54 recommendations aim to help the country meet the basic needs of the population, strengthen responsibility and end impunity.

“When public income becomes private fortune, peace cannot hold.

The Human Rights Commission in South Sudan was created by the UN Human Rights Council In March 2016. The three commissioners are not UN staff and do not receive payment for their work.

Development has followed information that the Israeli army has intensified its offensive on the ground in Gaza City, ordering residents to leave the region.

Speaking of the south of the enclave, UnicefTess Ingram has described the forced mass movement of families as a “deadly threat to the most vulnerable”.

“” It is inhuman to expect almost half a million children to beat and traumatized by more than 700 days of relentless conflict to flee a landscape of hell to find themselves in another“, She insisted.

150,000 go south in a month

According to the UN Humanitarian Affairs Coordination Office, OchhaIn recent days, partners monitoring the people movement in Gaza have counted nearly 70,000 trips to the south and around 150,000 in the month. The only available route, Al Rashid Road, was “very busy” when Ms. Ingram was there on Monday, she said.

Unicef ​​spokesperson described that he had met a mother who had walked for more than six hours of Gaza City in the south with her five children, “all dirty, thirsty and hungry”, including two without shoes.

They are pushed with tens of thousands of others to “a so-called humanitarian area” encompassing Al-Mawasi and the surrounding regions, she said.

Sea of ​​despair

Ms. Ingram described their destination as “a sea of ​​fortune tents, human despair” and services that are “insufficient” to support the hundreds of thousands that already live there.

The malnutrition of children in Gaza “in a spiral”Ingram continued, stressing that, according to UNICEF estimates, some 26,000 children in the enclave currently require treatment for acute malnutrition – more than 10,000 in Gaza City.

Famine was confirmed at the end of last month in Gaza City by supported food insecurity experts.

Closed food centers

UNICEF Ingram said that due to the evacuation and military climbing orders more nutrition centers in Gaza City have been forced to close this week, “cutting children from a third of the remaining treatment sites that can save their lives”.

While the humanitarian workers remain on the spot and continue to respond to the crisis, “it becomes more difficult with each bombardment and each denial,” she said.

According to OCHA, last Sunday on 17 missions according to which the humanitarian teams coordinated with the Israeli authorities, only four were facilitated, while seven missions were refused and others were hampered on the ground or had to be canceled.

Ms. Ingram spoke of the dilemma of the desperate gasans with which the Gazans are confronted: “Stay in danger or run away to a place that they also know dangerous.” She recalled that Al-mawasi had been attacked about two weeks ago, when eight children were killed while they were queuing for water; The youngest victim was three years old.

More to follow …