World leaders return to UN with focus on Covid, climate
World leaders are returning to the United Nations in New York this week with a focus on boosting efforts to fight both climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic, which last year forced them to send video statements for the annual gathering.
As the coronavirus still rages amid an inequitable vaccine rollout, about a third of the 193 UN states are planning to again send videos, but presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers for the remainder are due to travel to the US.
The United States tried to dissuade leaders from coming to New York in a bid to stop the UN General Assembly from becoming a "super-spreader event," although President Joe Biden will address the assembly in person, his first UN visit since taking office. A so-called UN honor system means that anyone entering the assembly hall effectively declares they are vaccinated, but they do not have to show proof.
This system will be broken when the first country speaks - Brazil. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is a vaccine skeptic, who last week declared that he does not need the shot because he is already immune after being infected with Covid-19.
Demonstrating US Covid-19 concerns about the UN gathering, Biden will be in New York only for about 24 hours, meeting with Guterres today and making his first UN address tomorrow, directly after Bolsonaro.
His UN envoy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said Biden would "speak to our top priorities: ending the pandemic; combating climate change ... and defending human rights, democracy, and the international rules-based order."
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