Interviews

2023 is on track to be the hottest year ever and the last 10 years have proven to be the warmest decade so far. These are worrying trends that suggest increasing floods, wildfires, glacier melt and heatwaves, lie immediately ahead.

This is the warning issued by Petteri Taalas, World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General, who spoke to UN News in Dubai, ahead of the launch of the agency’s provisional State of the Global Climate report on the opening day of COP28.

When it comes to mitigating loss and damage caused by climate change, the global response is often failing to keep pace, according to Gernot Laganda of the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

“We have had decades now where the temperature curve has really kept climbing, while adaptation financing was often too little, too late,” said the senior official.

Despite intense national efforts geared towards eliminating AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, the Deputy Executive Director for the UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Angeli Achrekar, says that so far, the “job isn't done.” 

Ms. Achrekar, spoke with Pauline Batista from UN News as UNAIDS launched its latest report on Tuesday, Let Communities Lead. 

It suggests the world can still end AIDS by the ambitious deadline, but only if communities on the frontlines get the full support they need from governments and donors.

Just one book can turn a displaced child’s life around and help unite the world, said the newly minted winner of the UN refugee agency’s (UNHCR) annual Nansen award on Tuesday.

Somali-born Abdullahi Mire, who sought refuge with his mother at the vast Dadaab refugee complex in northern Kenya in the 1990s, told UN News the prize money was “a milestone for us” that would benefit kids in the camp by expanding bookshelves and boosting internet connectivity.

The climate crisis is also a health crisis. This is the message the UN health agency will deliver to world leaders and negotiators gathering at this year’s UN Climate Change Conference, COP28, in Dubai. The WHO says, the same pollution that impacts the climate also affects our lungs, and extreme weather events lead to a large range of diseases. 

UN News’ Nathalie Minard spoke with Dr. Maria Neira, Director of the Department of Public Health and Environment at the World Health Organization (WHO), ahead of COP28. 

Negotiations continued on Thursday towards the implementation of the Israel-Hamas truce in Gaza, where staff from the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, remain “on the ground doing an impossible mission”.

That’s according to Maha Hijazi, UNRWA Warehousing and Distribution Officer, who was responsible for securing food for hundreds of thousands of people in the enclave, which continues to face dire shortages of food, water fuel and medicines. 

In northern Gaza, nearly 200 people were killed and injured following attacks this weekend on the UN-run Al-Fakoura school, according to Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA).

As the Israel-Palestine crisis continues, he told UN News’s Reem Abaza that “things are getting worse.”

Speaking to us from Gaza, Mr. Hasna gave an update on the developing situation and what’s to come as the intensifying humanitarian crisis continues amidst fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants.