World Food Programme/Appointment, UNGA 81 Statistics, Secretary-General/SDG Moment & other topics - Daily Press Briefing

what I know exactly all right good afternoon I'm sorry for the delay and I know there's a lot of stuff uh going on um in a short while we'll be joined by David nanopoulos the head of the treaty section who will be here to talk to you about the annual treaty event taking place on the sidelines of the General Assembly I have a senior appointment uh for you which has been some reporting about today the Secretary General and the Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization announced the appointment of Luke Lindberg of the United States as the Executive Director of the World Food Program. As you know, Luke will succeed Cindy McCain of the US. The Executive Board of the World Food Program confirmed its concurrence with the appointment earlier today. The Secretary General and the FAO Director General expressed their deep appreciation for the work of Ms. McCain for her leadership and dedicated service to the World Food Program. She led WFP through one of the most demanding periods in its history, serving as a steadfast voice for people affected by conflict, by disaster, and severe hunger, and for the courageous personnel serving them on the front lines. Both also wish to express their appreciation to Carl Skow, the Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of WFP, who will continue to serve as acting executive director until Mr. Lindbergh assumes his position. Currently serving as the undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mr. Lindbergh is the principal diplomat for U.S. agriculture and brings cabinet-level experience to the job. We congratulate him and welcome him, and a lot more on his biography on the internet. Some numbers for you, head of the GA, because I know you're all interested in that. So far, we expect about 73 heads of states, 45 heads of government, 49 ministers, 11 vice presidents, and one crown prince. Alongside the mandated meetings, there are about 168 events that are scheduled during the high-level week. And Member States have so far submitted about 1,000 requests for bilateral amongst themselves. Obviously, the bilaterals with the Secretary-General also being scheduled. You will have a lot of new colleagues for the week. We've issued 1,935 press passes for visiting journalists and an additional 1,290 press passes for official media. We'll keep updating you on numbers as they evolve. This morning, the Secretary-General delivered remarks at the 2026 SDG Moment, stressing that the global goals are the shared promise made by governments to eradicate poverty, hunger, fight inequality, protect the planet, and leave no one behind. However, this promise is not being kept, he said. Conflicts, climate crisis, growing inequality, and lack of financing are placing sustainable development under increasing pressure. Mr. Guterres called for greater investment in in education, in food security, in decent work, in health care and social protection, as well as firm action on human rights and gender inequality. Excuse me. He also urged countries to accelerate a just transition to renewable energy and to increase financing for development to build a fairer, safer and more sustainable world. 00 p.m., the Secretary-General will speak at the Security Council on peacekeeping operations. In his remarks, he will stress that peacekeeping is a political instrument deployed to support political solutions, never as a substitute for them. As conflicts evolve and peace agreements become increasingly rare and fragile, he will call for a reset in how peace operations are designed and supported. The Secretary-General will emphasize the need for greater focus on peacemaking and for missions to be equipped with the resources, with the capabilities, and the flexibility needed to carry out their mandates effectively. He will also stress that no organization can address today's conflicts alone and that peacekeeping operations must work alongside host countries, regional organizations, and the UN system as a whole. On a related note, yesterday here at headquarters, Boris Pistorius, the Defence Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany formally handed over the hosting of the next UN Peacekeeping Ministerial Meeting to Indonesia and the Netherlands. They will jointly host it in Jakarta next year. The UN Peacekeeping Ministerial is our flagship forum on peacekeeping, bringing together governments to pledge their political and concrete support for peacekeeping operations worldwide to ensure that our missions have the political support, the resources and the capabilities needed to carry out their mandate. Uh, effectively during the handover event, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, under Secretary General for, uh, peace operations, thanked Germany for successfully hosting the 2025 ministerial meeting on peacekeeping. Yesterday afternoon, the Secretary-General launched the UN System Data Commons, which is a UNAD initiative that makes publicly available data and statistics from across the UN system easier to find and connect through a single gateway. It's quite an interesting tool for those of you who are interested in statistics and number. You can access it at data.un.org. I think anybody can remember that. Twenty-six UN system entities are participating in some 44 million data are already available. You can search across institutions while tracing information back to its original source. The purpose is simple, to make the wealth of trusted information we produce every day more accessible to member states, researchers, and the public, and more usable in the world in which people increasingly obtain information through digital and AI tools. Turning to Pakistan, I can tell you that the Secretary-General strongly condemns the bomb attack at a mosque in Khyber, Pakistan, which reportedly killed at least 16 people, including police officers, and injured more than 50 others. He extends his deepest condolences to the families of those killed and wishes a speedy recovery to those injured. The Secretary-General underscores that attacks targeting civilians and places of worship are unacceptable and calls for those responsible, to be held to account, and to be brought to justice. He expresses his solidarity and the solidarity of the United Nations with the people and government of Pakistan in their efforts to address terrorism and extremism. Turning to Yemen, our humanitarian colleagues tell us that this fighting continues in that country, and more families are being forced to leave their homes. We and our partners are stepping up support for them. Between the 1st of August and the 16th of September, our humanitarian partners and ourselves reached more than 11,000 displaced households with rapid response kits and other urgently needed assistance. While this marks a significant scale-up of the response, the needs are continuing to outpace relief efforts, which face ongoing funding shortfalls and constraints. During the same period, our OCHA colleagues tell us that more than 18,000 households were displaced across Yemen. Sadly, that number will likely rise if the fighting continues. Meanwhile, the Human Rights Office continues to monitor and verify civilian harm and gather testimonies for those affected. Since the hostilities escalated in August, the Human Rights Office has documented 110 civilian casualties, 31 incidents, including 28 killed and 82 injured across Taiz, Al Hudaydah, and Marib. Insecurity, access constraints continue to hamper our ability to verify the actual number, as you can imagine, is very likely higher. We urge all parties and those with influence over them to act immediately to de-escalate, to protect civilians, and facilitate humanitarian access. Every effort must be made to prevent further loss of life. And across the strait in Djibouti, people are continuing to arrive from Yemen after a perilous journey, often on small boats. Some describe having to leave family members behind, and reports indicate that thousands more are trying to leave Yemen have been unable to flee due to insecurity, fuel shortages that has been leaving them stranded. In Obok, in Djibouti, new arrivals are being transferred from coastal entry points to the Markazi refugee village, where they can be registered and receive support from our colleagues at UNHCR and access national services. We and our partners are on the ground providing temporary shelters, transportation, relief items, food, water, healthcare, while supporting the government of Djibouti and the national refugee authorities with registration of refugees. The government, UNHCR, partners are preparing for at least 10,000 new arrivals from Yemen at a time where Djibouti already hosts 36,000 refugees mainly from Somalia and Ethiopia. This obviously places further strain on an already strained humanitarian system. The pressure is not limited to Djibouti. Authorities in Somaliland and Puntland, areas of Somalia, have also reported increased arrivals from Yemen, including Yemeni refugees and Somali refugee returnees. We continue to urgently call for international support to help us respond rapidly to the needs of people forced to flee their homes, both inside Yemen and across the Red Sea. Without additional resources now, already-stretched protection and assistance capacity could quickly be overwhelmed as the displacement numbers continue to rise. Turning to the occupied Palestinian territory, colleagues in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs tell us that part of a war-damaged residential building collapsed today in Gaza City, the second such incident this week. As you know, emergency teams were able to rescue children who were underneath the building. Only minor injuries, thankfully, were reported. Our humanitarian partners continue to warn that families are living amid widespread destruction, immense humanitarian needs, and ongoing restrictions on access and the entry of essential supplies. An estimated 1.2 million people, that's 58% of the population in Gaza, face shelter conditions ranging from critical to catastrophic. And as the first rains of the season fall over Gaza today, our humanitarian partners say that more than 65% of the families they've assessed are living in tents or makeshift shelters, over half of those described as being in poor or very poor conditions. Once again, we urge the Israeli the entry of heavy equipment, engine oil, durable shelter materials and other items necessary to repair damaged buildings and help people secure safer living conditions. Last week, in addition to 200 households reached with rapid assistance, which we told you about yesterday, we and our partners provided nearly 6,600 families with routine shelter support, which also includes hundreds of new tents as well as tarpaulins, kitchen sets, solar lights, sleeping mats, and blankets. Our humanitarian partners say more can be done to meet urgent needs once additional funding is received. Turning to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where our colleagues tell us that hostilities in the eastern and northern South Kivu provinces are continuing to drive displacement and further strain on already overstretched communities. Since mid-August, intensified fighting in two provinces forced more than 70,000 human beings to flee Walikale Territory, North Kivu. That's what our local partners have told us. The arrival of so many people is placing additional pressure on basic services and host communities, while insecurity remains a big restricting factor on the movement of civilians and humanitarian personnel, making it more difficult for us to reach the people in need. The humanitarian coordinator for the U.N. in the D.R.C., Damien Mama, was in Masisi, in North Kivu, this morning and will travel to Goma later today, where he'll meet with humanitarian organizations to discuss protection of civilians access constraints and efforts to scale up assistance. We once again call on all parties to protect civilians and ensure safe, sustained, and unhindered humanitarian access so that lifesaving assistance can reach those who need it the most. Also, I want to flag that today we commemorate the 65th anniversary of the death of our former Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold, who, as you know, was killed in a plane crash near Ndola in Zambia while on a mediation mission in the Congo. As part of the commemoration ceremonies, the head of our peacekeeping mission in the DRC, James Swan, joined representatives of the Government of Zambia, members of the diplomatic community, and other guests at the crash site to honor Hammerschmidt's enduring legacy of courage, service, and active peacemaking. Turning to Ukraine, our UN Human Rights Office report published today says that sexual violence has been used against civilians and prisoners of war in Ukraine in a shocking pattern of torture, intimidation, and coercion since the start of the Russian Federation's full-scale armed attack on its neighbors more than four years ago. According to the report, 1,000 cases of sexual violence were documented from 24th February 2022 through the end of July this year. Of these cases, 89 percent were attributed to Russian authorities, including members of the armed forces. the prison service, and the national security service. The remaining 11 percent were attributed to Ukrainian authorities. The report notes that most of the victims of sexual violence were men, particularly in places of detention, but women and children were also affected, primarily in occupied territories of Ukraine. Volker Turk, our High Commissioner, says he's deeply alarmed by the prevalence of such abhorrent acts documented in the report. And turning to Haiti, closer to these shores, Our humanitarian colleagues warn that the nutrition situation for children continues to deteriorate in Haiti. According to our colleagues at UNICEF, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and World Food Program, more than a quarter of a million children between the ages of six to 59 months old are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition between June of this year and May of next year. This includes 94,000 children, 94,000 children facing severe acute malnutrition, which can become life-threatening without timely treatment. As we've told you several times on this podium, continued violence forces families to flee their homes. It disrupts children's access to food, health care, and nutrition. Some 1.5 million people are internally displaced, half of them children. Nearly half of Haiti's population is facing food insecurity. Our humanitarian colleagues warn the situation will likely become critical between December of this year and May of next year, when 29 of the 140 municipalities are projected to reach IPC acute malnutrition phase 3, while the neighborhoods of Cite Soleil and Cabare are expected to reach phase The nutrition sector under Haiti's humanitarian response plan requires $41 million. It is less than 20% funded with just $7.5 million received. We need more money and we need it very, very soon. A couple of international days to flag for you. Today is International Equal Pay Day. Across all regions, women are paid less than men with gender gap. estimated around 20% globally, while equal pay for women and men has been widely endorsed, applying it into practice has been difficult and progress on narrowing that gap has been slow. And Sunday, get your brooms. It is World Cleanup Day. Our focus this year is on food waste. Every day, more than 1 billion meals are wasted worldwide, as 673 million people go hungry every day. The day is a reminder of our shared responsibility to manage waste and resources more sustainably. Before we go to our guest, Efrain, I see you reaching for something.

Thank you so much, Steph. It's about next week. I wonder if you can please walk us through the mood in this building before High-Level Week. What does the Secretary General expect from world leaders? What is the single most important message he'd like to send them before they arrive to New York this next week?

Thank you. The mood before High-Level Week is always one of high stress, as we try to get everything organized. Once High-Level Week starts, it's basically over, then we can't do anything. So right now, we're all very stressed and working hard and putting together the 81st version of this General Assembly. I mean, I think the message, the Secretary-General outlined it for you, I think, more eloquently than I could ever do in the press conference the other day, is that we have to deal with the imminent crises that are facing us, not only the issues of conflict and peace and security, climate, technology and inequalities. We talk about equal pay day, but we're talking about the growing inequalities between countries, the growing inequalities within countries. And if this continues, it continues to be a very destabilizing factor. The Secretary General will also want member states to recommit to the values of this organization and continue to push for reform. So we get a UN, as he's been saying, that reflects the world of 2026 and not the world of 1945. There we go. Linda.

Thank you, Steph. I was wondering if the Secretary General has a reaction, I'm sure, I know he does, but in terms of the significance of the vetoes yesterday in the Security Council regarding the, you know, non-renewal of the panel of experts regarding Iran's nuclear program.

Far be it for me to question the wisdom of Security Council members and how they vote. I mean, Stepping back, I think the Secretary-General has always underscored the continued and growing divisions within the Council, which makes our work on peace and security that much more challenging.

But what does he think?

Specifically-- Your microphone's not on.

What does he think specifically regarding Iran's nuclear program and the role of the Security Council?

The nuclear program, he's been very clear that Iran has some very direct commitments vis-a-vis the IAEA, which is in the lead for the UN on these issues, and Iran needs to meet those commitments. Volodymyr, then Jessica.

Thank you, Stefan. Lavrov, the mouthpiece of the Putin regime, with no doubt, once again, tried to trot out his favorite talking point here that Russia committed no war crimes in Bucha and to give a presumably once again demand that the Secretary General produce some kind of evidence. What would you say to Lavrov as his continued peddling of this all the relevant evidence is publicly available.

On Bucha, I think our position is well documented. This is an issue that the Russian Federation has raised repeatedly with the Secretary General. The Secretary General has done what he can. There are procedures for all of this. And so the questions are the same and our answers are the same. Jessica.

Thank you, Steph. What's the name of the software that you are using for the new UN data system? Who designed it and did you partner with any private firms?

My understanding is they're using an open sourced Google platform, but something that is open source.

So it was designed by UN technicians.

Yes, it was very much designed by our great teams.

How much did it cost?

Let me see if I can get a breakdown for you. I do not have that with me, though I should. Yes, sir.

Jonathan Geyer with The Economist. You mentioned seeking a UN that reflects 2026 rather than 1945. How do you see that playing out in the next week? And what should we be watching?

I don't know who said this. It may have been Kofi Annan, though probably wasn't. But reform is not a one-night stand, right? It's not a one-week stand. It's a constant, constant push. The Secretary General has repeatedly called for a reform of the Security Council, for the expansion of permanent seats. He has repeatedly underscored the injustice of the fact that Africa, as a continent, is not represented in the permanent in the permanent membership. He's also called for and pushed for reform of the Bretton Woods institutions and will continue to do that. But as you know, he can push, he can prod, he can talk about it, but the actual decisions have to be taken by member states themselves. And this is something he will continue to raise publicly, as he did on Wednesday and as he will in his remarks on Tuesday. Pam.

Thanks, Steph. I think a lot of people are trying to get at, do you see a theme emerging from this UNGA? You've been through a lot of them. We've all been, many of us have been through a lot of them. And often it's one or two themes of the biggest conflicts, but there's so many conflicts going on now, maybe that's the theme. I mean, do you have any sense of overview of how you're seeing going into it?

I mean, you know, I think the Secretary-General sat with you for an hour, answered 27 questions on Wednesday. He described, as I said, he's the boss, he's more eloquent than I am. The situation has not really changed between Wednesday and today. There are a lot of fronts. that we need global unity on, on AI, on climate, not only unity in action. And we have the conflicts in Ukraine, in Gaza, in the Gulf, in Yemen. And we also have this horrendous conflict going on in Sudan, while the world turns a blind eye, right? The attention, I mean, the attention span and the capacity of people to take in so many conflicts at once is, we've reached capacity, but it doesn't mean we can't stop caring and we can't stop pushing for peace as in Sudan, as Mr. Haviestoh is doing on our behalf and on the humanitarian operations.

All right, thank you. But also, is there a, do you anticipate a meeting between, I think you said it yesterday, someone asked the SG, but I don't remember if he was clear that there will be a meeting between US president and the SG.

Yes, we're waiting for the, I mean, the Secretary General's met, any previous Secretary General's met the U.S. President every day on the first day of the high-level debate. Right, okay. All, you know, again, I ask you to have a thought and a prayer for our colleagues who are doing the scheduling of the Secretary General's events. But everything's being...

And you said a thousand... what?

Bilaterals. Which means.

A thousand bilateral requests.

Which is basically the bilateral, the use of the bilateral rooms amongst member states.

Oh, of all.

Yes, of the ones that are in the General Assembly.

Yes, she doesn't have a thousand of them.

No, please. That would be a thousand readouts for you to process. Madame.

Thank you, Stefan. If, concerning the election, election or succession, Guterres succession. If no consensus is reached... Your microphone a little closer. If no consensus is reached on a successor by the end of the year, is there any possibility that Secretary General Antonio Guterres could remain in office temporarily beyond 31st December 2026 as a transitional solution.

Two points. One, Antonio Guterres, as a human being, will be in Portugal on August 1. Woe be to him, anyone who tries to stop him from being in Portugal on January 1st of 2027. We firmly believe in the wisdom of member states that they will finish the selection process by December 31st. So we have a new Secretary General on January 1st. Okay, I will get our, yes, Minoo, please, sorry. And then I'll get our guest.

I just missed the beginning of the briefing. Do we still have briefing next week?

Like, you did miss the beginning of the briefing, but I didn't say anything about it. Thank you for reminding me. We will have a briefing on Monday. We will not have a briefing Tuesday and Wednesday. We will likely not have one on Thursday, and we will come back on Friday. If we decide to brief on Thursday, we'll let you know, but you guys have enough stuff to do. So, okay? So just bear with me two seconds. Great. We are delighted to bring back for another year our friend David Nanopoulos, who is the head of the treaty section of the Office of Legal Affairs. He will brief you on the annual treaty event. David.

Good afternoon. It's good to see you again. to brief you indeed on the annual treaty event that will take place next week during high level week. So it's from Tuesday 22 to Friday 25. This is an event we have been organizing every year since 2000. And the Secretary General every year invite heads of states and head of government to take the opportunity of their presence in New York to take action on behalf of their countries on one of the more than 600 multilateral treaties deposited with him. The theme of this year event is promoting multilateral treaties, safeguarding humanity. In his invitation letter, the Secretary General stressed that the multilateral treaty framework is precisely in place for the uplifting and safeguarding of humanity. And the goals of universal participation and effective implementation of our multilateral treaties are within our collective reach. Under UN auspices, states have adopted hundreds of multilateral treaties covering basically all aspects of human activity, protection of the environment, disarmament, law of the sea, human rights. And the Secretary General for those treaties plays the role of depository, not only this role, but that's what we're talking about here, is in charge of basically participation in the treaty, and basically is the custodian of that text. And so that's what the treaty event is all about. It's about participation in those treaties. Since I'm here every year, would like to take also the opportunity to give you very briefly a couple of highlights in the field of multilateral treaties. One is about the protection of the ocean. Last year at our treaty event, 21 states participated in the treaty event and a lot of them took action on the BBNJ agreement, which you know, which is this agreement related to the protection of the ocean. And since then, on 17 January 2026, it entered into force. It became an active treaty. This was something historic. It happened in over two years, which is very short. The SG, when this happened, highlighted the historic significance of this event and invited states to join the existing 94 parties. This is what will happen next week. We expect that many states will actually join the BBNJ agreement. Another big event was relating to cybercrime, cybercriminality. After the treaty event on 25, 26 October, a ceremony was organized in Hanoi in Vietnam for the opening for signature of the UN Convention against cyber crime. It was a beautiful ceremony and on this occasion 71 states and one international organization signed the treaty. It's significant. It's the biggest we've had in over 10 years. The As of today, 82 signatories and three ratifications have been gathered for this treaty. We expect a lot of action next week during the treaty event, also for cybercrime. And now, just to conclude, a new UN treaty in the field of trade. It's a UN convention on negotiable cargo documents. I won't speak too much about it. Because it is not something where you can expect any action next week, it's opening for signature the month after in Accra in Ghana, so to conclude on logistical arrangement. It is happening, the treaty event, in the Kuwaiti Bot area from Tuesday to Friday next week. It's a series of short ceremonies when you will have Minister of Foreign Affairs, Head of State, and Head of Government taking action publicly on behalf of their country. It's open to UN-accredited press. and you can find all information not only on the event but on all multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary General on the website of the treaty section. I know you go there every day, but just in case, it's treaties.un.org. We hope many of you will participate in the treaty event. We know many states will do so, and I'm here if you have any question. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions? Yes, Eric in the pen.

Hi. Do you expect any actions related to the Rome Statute, the TPNW, and the CTBT?

I do. But I won't tell you which state and what. The reason is that we don't want to out heads of state, head of government today. We have a number of ceremonies in the pipeline. But I don't want to tell you this will happen, and then there's a last minute-- oops. Exactly. Something like that happened at the last minute. And then it happens to be next week. But those are among the highlighted treaties. And yes, you can anticipate also actions in this field.

Thank you, Pam.

And then we'll go to the back.

Thank you for the briefing. It's Pamela Fock from US News and World Report. On BBNJ, do you expect more? There's, what, 145 signatures now?

No, no, listen, for BBNJ now, what matters, because it's an active treaty, I mean, signature's extremely important, but-- It's.

94 parties.

Exactly. The treaty's not even open for signature now. So now it's ratification, the parties. When you become party to this treaty, it is creating rights and obligation from the country. The countries now are moving from the participation to the implementation, to change the life of people, to change the life of countries. And we expect quite a number of new countries to do so. We have an important event that will happen early next year, which is the first meeting of the parties.

Yeah, January is the conference of parties.

So you know everything. And so that will be an opportunity to have even more countries actually being there as full participants.

And you'll know when somebody goes and signs this week.

Yes, of course.

And where will it be? It will be on your--.

It will be in the Kuwaiti border area.

But I mean, will you let us know?

So how do we communicate? So basically, what we do is that we do that every day. And because it's a public event--

On the treaty site.

-every day it's done. We send legal document, but also the pictures. And also, we send every evening on the website and to everybody that wants it by e-mail an update of what happened that day. So you will be informed in real time.

All right. And at the conference of parties, you expect who?

This I don't know, because I'm not-- you should ask my fantastic colleagues. But we certainly expect all the parties to be there.

Because that's a conference of-- I know all the BBJ event. during next week.

I cannot respond to that. That's maybe something that could be organized by some states or by colleagues, but I don't know about that. I'm in my silo of the treaty event today. OK. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Yes, you go ahead.

Merci, David. I just have a question. Do you think that there will be any work done on the UN conventions of the law of the sea? at the treaty event, considering everything that's going on with global shipping, both in the Black Sea, the Strait of Hormuz, and now the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Well, yes and no. The BBNJ is an agreement under UNCLOS. So everything that is happening in this field is actually in the realm of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. But on the convention itself, in terms of participation, I'm not expecting anything at this stage. We're open for business, but there's nothing I expect at the treaty event specifically on UNCLOS right now.

Jessica, then Minru.

Hi. I was wondering when do you expect that there will be a treaty on autonomous weapons, and why isn't there one already?

I certainly cannot respond to this question, because I don't know. Basically, if you want to look at treaties in real terms, as you are. You have a problem, when does it change people's life? You have three stages. The treaty has to be negotiated. They need to be a political momentum, a forum. It could be within the UN, outside the UN. Within the UN, we have hundreds of different type of modalities, and you launch a process. Then the second stage, after the treaty is adopted, but it's just a piece of paper at this stage, is the participation, is for states domestically to actually join the treaty, ratify, accept the rights and obligations. Then it will enter into force and be implemented, and that's where it will begin to change the life of people. My job as depository is in the middle, meaning the participation. We work only on treaties, and we begin our job when the treaties are adopted. And what you're asking me, which is a very important question, is the previous stage, which is launching a negotiation, where do we have the negotiation, who is doing that. This is not what the depository does. So that's why I cannot respond to your question. If there is such a treaty one day, we will then intervene to allow states to sign and ratify it.

Min Lu.

So for PPNJ, China, Chile, and Belgium, they have already put forward their offers to host the permanent secretariat. I guess this would be decided during the COP1.

So I can give you exactly the same response than to your colleague. This is about the implementation of the treaty. This is for when member states will make decision on how the treaty will operate. Again, this is absolutely not something the depository is working on. We're in between. We're between the negotiation and the implementation. The job of the SG as depository is here on participation. What happens afterwards or before is really not within the realm of what we do, so I really cannot give you an answer.

On that note, Debbie, thank you very much and good luck with the treaty event.

Thanks so much.