UNITED NATIONS (HRNW) – United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will convene a “no-nonsense” climate ambition summit in September next year and warned on Monday that there will be “no room for back-sliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters” or a repackaging of old pledges.
In a wide-ranging news conference to close out 2022, Guterres also said that he “will not relent in the pursuit of peace in Ukraine in line with international law and the United Nations Charter.” A key principle of the founding U.N. Charter is respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.
He is “not optimistic” about the possibility of effective Ukraine and Russia peace talks in the immediate future and believes the military confrontation will go on, but added that he “strongly hopes” there can be an end to the war in 2023.
In the meantime, Guterres said he would focus on increasing the efficiency of a U.N.-brokered deal that resumed Ukraine’s Black Sea food and fertilizer shipments, continue to try and restart the export of Russian ammonia via Ukraine and seek to accelerate the exchange of prisoners of war.