Florence Foster, Representative for Peace & Disarmament at QUNO Geneva, had the pleasure of speaking to the Council on Christian Approaches to Defence and Disarmament (CCADD) over a lunch time event on ‘Small Arms Exports, Leadership and Accountability: A Human Rights Perspective’.

Acknowledging the strong momentum and action around issues of plastics pollution and marine plastics litter, QUNO participated in an informal discussion with stakeholders engaged in the work of the WTO's Informal Dialogue on Plastic Pollution and Environmentally Sustainable Plastics Trade (IDP). The meeting was convened by the IDP co-coordinators, and facilitated by Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs.

The Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva, under the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC), is the only accredited faith-based observer organisation actively engaged at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  From 14-27 February, the IPCC held an intergovernmental meeting to finalise a Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) of its report, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

On February 2nd 2022, over 130 people joined the virtual roundtable event co-hosted by QUNO Geneva and the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) at the International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding. The event addressed three elements at the intersection of challenges and opportunities in the post-COP26 context, namely: addressing the root causes of climate change, the role of human rights and avoiding securitisation. 

Acknowledging that the world is moving towards increasingly complex crisis situations, which require ever more complex responses, the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) has increasingly focused on the role of sustainable and people-centered strategies for peace within crisis response - a priority that has been uplifted in QUNO’s 2020-2025 Strategic Plan.

Friends World Committee for Consultation Section of the Americas (FWCC SOA) recently invited QUNO to a meeting with their Regional Coordinators to talk about our work and how Friends around the world can engage with us. It was a small meeting with vast reach, with Regional Coordinators from across the Americas, including the United States, El Salvador and Mexico in attendance, each connected to a Yearly Meeting.

Eleven leaders from seven international Quaker organisations met at Friends House London and online for three days in early December. They included our incoming and outgoing Directors in New York (Sarah Clarke and Andrew Tomlinson) and in Geneva (Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge and Jonathan Woolley).

QUNO was present throughout the entire COP26 in Glasgow, focusing on climate justice concerns, and strengthening ambitious, effective and fair international climate efforts.  Please see ‘read more’ for an overview of QUNO work and links to presentations, publications and statements, and an analysis of the COP26, ‘Two steps forward, one step back’, by Representative for Climate Change, Lindsey Fielder Cook.

At the Opening Ceremony of Geneva Peace Week 2021, our Representative for Climate Change, Lindsey Fielder Cook was part of the speaker panel to discuss ways forward for environment, climate change and peace. 

Lindsey joined live from COP26 to implore the critical role of global, regional and local climate action to avoid catastrophic climate change, while emphasising that “climate change is symptomatic of a greater challenge of how to live sustainably and justly on earth.”