As the United Nations-led Global Stocktake is being finalised, the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) has offered two submissions to this assessment of international action on climate change.

QUNO’s submission — available for download here — was made on behalf of the Quaker organisation, Friends World Committee for Consultation, which it represents at the United Nations (UN).

Every few months, the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in Geneva publishes the Geneva Reporter newsletter. In this latest September 2023 edition we share stories about how our staff found their path to Quaker House in Geneva, report on our annual Quaker United Nations Summer School held recently, and have a Q&A with one of our programme assistants who is wrapping up a year of working with our Human Rights & Refugees programme.

Last November, States that took part in COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh agreed to pass a new funding arrangement for responding to loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change. Loss and damage (L&D) refers to the monetary and non-monetary losses and damages that people have experienced and will experience due to sudden and slow-onset events. Economic, or tangible, L&D includes the loss of property and livelihood, changes in labor and agricultural productivity, cost of medical treatments associated with climatic events, and so forth.

2023 is an opportunity for us to celebrate 75 years of Quaker peace and justice work at the UN. Read our newest QUNO Review to learn more about the work of our New York and Geneva offices during this past year, and to learn about the work ahead.

QUNO, speaking as Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC), took part in an approval process to finalize the Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which collates the full findings of the 6th Assessment Report. From 13-19th March, 135 states and over 150 observers took part in negotiations to finalize the language of the Synthesis Report to communicate to policy makers worldwide the latest climate science.

Late in the evening on 4 March 2023, the United Nations adopted a historic treaty to protect the world’s oceans. The Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, or the BBNJ, reached agreement on what is widely being referred to as the High Seas Treaty. This came after weeks of grueling negotiations that built upon over two decades of talks on the issue.

The Human Impacts of Climate Change representative, Lindsey Fielder Cook, and HICC programme assistant, Alana Marie Carlson, continued in the second week of COP27 to focus on urgent, fair, and transformative climate action, and financial support to loss and damage. Join us on 8 December 2022 at 15h CET for a debrief on COP27. Register here!

On 25 October 2022, QUNO and the Catholic Climate Covenant co-hosted a webinar on sovereign debt reduction. COP27 is promising to be heavily focused on concerns about financing climate change mitigation and adaptation. Sovereign debt reduction is increasingly being spoken about as a "solution" to climate financing. Experts spoke on important questions that must be considered when discussing this subject.