REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE
Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the United Nations Information Service, chaired the briefing, which was attended by spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Meteorological Organization, the International Organization for Migration, and the World Health Organization.
Zimbabwe
Elizabeth Throssell, for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said OHCHR welcomed the widening of the democratic space in Zimbabwe ahead of the 30 July Presidential elections and called on the Government, all political parties and other institutions to ensure that the elections were held in an environment which was peaceful, and where human rights and the rule of law were fully respected. It was encouraging to see open political rallies and peaceful demonstrations being held in Harare, as well as the many expressions of cautious optimism from civil society. The presence of some international human rights organizations, in addition to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission and the Zimbabwe Gender Commission, to monitor the human rights environment around the upcoming national elections was also a welcome sign.
OHCHR remained concerned, however, at the increasing number of reports, particularly in some rural areas, of voter intimidation, threats of violence, harassment and coercion, including people being forced to attend political rallies. There had also been the worrying use of disparaging language against female political candidates. OHCHR called on the authorities – and political parties and their supporters – to ensure that the elections were not marred by such acts so that all Zimbabweans could participate free from fear in a credible election process. To this end, OHCHR noted the signing of the Peace Pledge by the political parties on 26 June, under the auspices of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission. OHCHR welcomed their commitment to promote a climate of peace and tolerance, accept the results of elections, or challenge the results through the due process of law, refrain from inducing fear in citizens, campaign against all forms of violence and intimidation, and resolve disputes through dialogue.
Asked if OHCHR had monitors in Zimbabwe to help ensure the elections were credible, Ms. Throssell said they had a colleague, a human rights advisor, who was based in Harare and monitored the human rights situation and the human rights environment in which the elections took place. As regards the number of election monitors, there were various bodies, including the European Union and other international organizations that had sent monitors. From the point of view of OHCHR, they were encouraged by what they were seeing and referred to the cautious optimism expressed by civil society and shared that.
Asked to elaborate further on the disparaging language used against female candidates, and if Zimbabwe had a quota system for women, Ms. Throssell, answering the last point first, said she was not sure if Zimbabwe had a quota system and said she would check on that. She understood that about 15 per cent of the candidates were women. The kind of disparaging language used targeted these candidates on the basis of them being women, calling them bra-burning feminists, substandard candidates, and attacking them personally. The attacks were verbal. As for the question on whether there were violent attacks, she recalled that the situation in the run-up to elections previously in Zimbabwe had been very different and very much marred by violence. From what OHCHR had been seeing and monitoring, there had not been that scale of violence this time. The situation was far from perfect, but there were encouraging signs.
Extreme Weather and Heatwaves
Clare Nullis, of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said WMO was issuing another update on extreme weather. It was continuing as the world headed into July, with very wide-spread impacts on human health, agriculture, eco systems and infrastructure. Starting with Europe, there was drought and heat in northern Europe. WMO had a regional centre for Europe, responsible for climate monitoring and operated by the German Weather Service, which last Friday updated a climate watch advisory issued by them a couple of weeks previously, which gave guidance on drought and above-normal temperatures, valid from 19 July to 6 August. This product was used by national meteorological services to issue their own forecasts and warnings. What the climate watch advisory said was that the weekly temperature anomalies, the above the long-term average, were forecasted up to 3 to 6 degrees Celsius above normal. In the first part of the advisory, i.e. this week, in parts of northern Europe, it could be 6 to 10 degrees Celsius above long-term average temperatures. Precipitation remained very well below normal in northern Europe. What they were seeing in northern Europe was unusual to say the least. As she said last Friday, temperatures topped 30 degrees Celsius in the Arctic Circle last week. This was more a typical July temperature for southern Europe. Badufoss in Norway saw a new record temperature of 33.5 degrees on 17 July. They were seeing very bad wild fires in Sweden. What was happening in July with very high temperatures and below average precipitation followed an exceptionally dry May in northern Europe, making conditions perfect for wild fires.
Some journalists may have seen the dreadful images from yesterday of wild fires in Greece. It was a real tragedy and WMO sent their condolences to all the victims and their families. They were not aware yet of the cause of these fires, but what they did know from weather forecasters in the region was that temperatures on Sunday and Monday reached about 38 degrees Celsius and there were strong west winds. This temperature for Greece in summer was not extreme or unusual. Greece, as other parts of southern Europe, had not witnessed the drought that they were seeing in northern Europe, so they could not compare the meteorological conditions in Greece with those that they were seeing in Scandinavia, but obviously it was a real tragedy for everybody concerned and dozens of people had lost their lives.
Going back to the drought, Ms. Nullis said that Ireland had declared an absolute drought at all its stations. The United Kingdom had seen its driest first half of summer on record, and the Met Office in the United Kingdom yesterday issued a news release saying that the heat wave would continue across much of England this week, with temperatures peaking up to 32 to 34 degrees Celsius in a few places on Thursday or Friday. Again, heat waves were relative, so these temperatures would not be extreme in southern Europe, north Africa or the Middle East, but for the United Kingdom and Ireland, these were extreme temperatures.
Moving to Japan, which at the end of June early July, saw devastating floods, that had now been replaced by an equally devastating heat wave with equally high impacts on human health. The Japan Meteorological Agency had been issuing warnings of very high temperatures, and yesterday, Kumagaya, which was quite close to Tokyo, set a new Japanese daily temperature record of 41.1 degrees Celsius. The high heat was combining with high humidity to give very dangerous conditions for vulnerable populations such as the elderly.
Moving on to California, earlier this month, the station of Furnace Creek in Death Valley National Park saw a temperature of 52 degrees Celsius on 8 July. The National Weather Service was warning of excessive heat which was going to hit the area later this week for south-east California, and south-west and south-central Arizona, valid until 25 July. It said temperatures in Las Vegas valley may reach up to 46 degrees Celsius, and may reach up to 53 degrees Celsius in Death Valley National Park on Thursday.
Paulo Ruti, Chief of the World Weather Research Programme, said the question was whether there was a global pattern of heat waves. Certainly, what was happening in terms of climate change was favouring some of the situations that they were encountering. So for instance, what was happening in Europe was related to an atmospheric blocking situation. This situation continued in June and July, with a stationary high pressure (or anti-cyclone) system covering northern-western Europe, bringing with it persistently high temperatures and low rainfall. This was favouring drought conditions that could be seen in the monitoring of several European agencies, including the European Union’s Copernicus project. Copernicus maps of the drought showed how strong the drought was in part of northern Europe, and in central and central-eastern Europe. This was a typical regional phenomenon that was often seen in winter but also sometimes happened in summer. The question was how could climate change influence this phenomenon. Recent studies from scientists working under WMO research programmes had identified that the length of such blocking patterns could be related to climate change. So there was an indirect link with climate change.
Dr. Ruti said another question was what was happening in the Arctic. There had been wild fires in the Arctic. As a result of climate change, permafrost was melting and this meant there was much more vegetation available. Wind was also a factor in wild fires. Another interesting factor that should be considered was the increase of storms and lightening, which could trigger fires in the Arctic. Recent analysis saw that there was a possibility of increase of these phenomena. So several factors had triggered some of the current situations. The key message was that the world was becoming increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The other important message was that the value of having these continuous activities that WMO was coordinating in terms of increasing the capacity of all countries to issue warnings and to be more specific and more user-oriented to have warning for any specific sector. Wildfire was one example, but there were many other examples, including heat waves.
Asked if climate change was happening faster than what was previously predicted, Dr. Ruti said WMO was monitoring some of the key factors related to climate change. The first one was the greenhouse gases. According to the WMO greenhouse gas bulletin, the trend there was linear. It was not only the direct input of human activities, but also other factors such as loss of permafrost or the uptake of CO2 by the ocean. All those elements needed to be considered. The other question was how the system was answering this. Sometimes, in certain specific situations, there were triggering mechanisms or tipping points. For instance, less permafrost led to more dead vegetation for wild fire, so there was an increase of probability of wild fires.
Asked again if climate change was happening faster than previously predicted, Mr. Ruti said it depended on what was their target. If it was the Arctic, the answer was yes. There had been an acceleration of the melting in the past five or six years. But the answer had to be contextualized as they could not apply the answer to any phenomenon happening in the world. It did not apply to other events like sand or dust storms. It depended on the events they were talking about.
Asked if WMO was able to forecast how long this unusual heatwave was going to continue, and if it knew how many deaths had occurred, Ms. Nullis said it depended where they were talking about. In Europe, the agency which operated WMO’s regional climate monitoring centre had issued its guidance note on the climate watch valid until 6 August. After that, it was a bit more uncertain.
Ms. Nullis said she had just received new information from Japan, quoting the Japan Meteorological Agency, saying that the high temperature was expected to continue through early August, which it defined from 1 to 10 August, and some places would continue to have daily highs of 35 degrees or higher. She added that in the area where there was serious devastation from the flooding, people there were especially vulnerable.
In response to a question on whether the extreme weather that they were seeing all over the world was related to global warming, Mr. Ruti said certainly global warming was leading to many of these extreme events happening more and more. So heat waves were predicted to be more frequent, and in some regions to be lasting for longer, and this was certainly related. The other aspects, for instance how it was affecting the Arctic. it was well known that there were mechanisms that continued to favour this melting and the increased temperature was certainly one of them. So some of those were strongly related to what climate change was already causing in terms of effects around the world.
Asked if this referred to the situation in Japan as well, Mr. Ruti said when he was speaking about the increase in temperature, this certainly was true that the overall increase of temperature affecting and drying the soil more and having more evaporation, actually increased the loss of humidity of the soil, that certainly was one element. One of the triggering elements was the wind, which could vary extremely from day to day and year to year. For heatwaves, there was certainly an overall understanding of the link. At the moment in Japan, they probably had a specific sub-regional event happening in Japan, relating to strong wind, but they did not have the same situation as in Europe, where there was a strong anti-cyclone that was lasting for weeks. At the moment, there were different weather patterns in Japan, and there were also some regional and sub-regional phenomena happening that was favouring part of Japan.
Asked about northern Europe, and the links between the drought and the heatwave to climate change, and if some predictions from the models could be made for the next few years, Mr. Ruti said there were a lot of activities under the IPCC and WMO on using models to project future conditions, the next 20, 30, 40 or 50 years. What they knew was that in Europe, and especially in central and southern Europe, there was a high probability of increase of extreme heat conditions. This summer’s situation was related to an atmospheric blocking situation, this anti-cyclone that was stationary in central Europe. What they knew from recent analyses was that the length of this blocking situation could be related to climate change. This was what they knew. The possibility of having those blocking situations lasting for longer in the future was certainly higher, and this was affecting at the moment central and northern Europe. That was one factor, but there could be other factors related to what the Atlantic Ocean was doing on the long term, then they could have climate change and also natural variability of the ocean, and they had to sum up the two. The Atlantic Ocean was quite influential to what was happening in summer in Europe. The overall message was that for heatwaves, yes Europe was supposed to see an increase of heatwaves.
In response to another question, Ms. Nullis said some records had been broken in northern Europe. They needed to wait until the end of this month to get the monthly total, but certainly daily temperature records had been broken in parts of Scandinavia. They needed to remember that this time last year, the picture was very different. So they were not saying that they were going to be seeing this every year as the climate did have natural variabilities.
Tarik Jasarevic, for the World Health Organization, said WHO’s office for Europe had a document that gave advice to the general public during the heat wave, on how to keep the home cool, how to improve nutrition, what to drink and what not to drink, how to recognise and what to do in case of symptoms related to heat, which could impact the health and lead to heart stroke, exhaustion, confusion, or worsen pre-existing conditions.
Ethiopia Appeal
Joel Millman, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said on Friday IOM had talked about the latest activity regarding Ethiopia and the possibility of an appeal to be launched by IOM. This appeal was being launched today for $ 22.2 million to assist 400,000 internally displaced persons in Ethiopia’s Gedeo and West Guji zones for the period from July to December 2018. This was a supplementary appeal to the existing IOM crisis appeal launched in March 2018. Since April 2018, some 970,000 people had fled their homes due to fighting between communities along the border of the two regions; the vast majority were displaced in June alone. This had resulted in loss of livelihoods, disruption of basic services and significant damage to infrastructure. IOM’s operations focused on providing humanitarian assistance to displaced populations in collective sites and within host communities through an integrated approach, including core relief distributions, primary health care, shelter and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Through site management support, IOM was facilitating the improvement of humanitarian service delivery, as well as the local authorities’ capacity to address protection concerns in displacement sites. In addition, IOM was supporting the overall humanitarian community's response by monitoring population movements and needs through its Displacement Tracking Matrix. The largest single amount in the appeal was $ 11.28 million for emergency shelters and non-food items, and the second largest amount was $ 6.8 million for water and sanitation material.
In response to questions, Mr. Millman said the internally displaced persons in Ethiopia were sleeping in the open with a single sheet of tarpaulin, often with dirt or mud underneath them. So shelter was of utmost importance. It was the rainy season. These internally displaced persons were in need of everything. Their living conditions were precarious. In the last two weeks alone, IOM had distributed over 2,000 blankets and it was currently transporting more items to collective sites with blankets and emergency shelter kits. For those who were sheltering outside buildings, IOM had started the construction of shelters, of which four had been completed, as well as communal kitchens. Other partners were providing mobile health clinics to ensure that displaced communities in collective sites had access to health care.
Rohingya in Bangladesh
Joel Millman, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said shelter teams from IOM, working with over 19,000 Rohingya refugee and local labourers, this week completed the construction of over 1,000 new shelters as part of a rapid response project to help move refugee families most at risk from landslides during the monsoon. In just over a month, 1,150 of the “Robust Emergency Shelters” had been built with the support of refugee and host communities, who had helped with the construction and transported materials to the new site known as Camp 20 Extension. Almost a million Rohingya refugees who fled violence in Myanmar were currently living in tarpaulin and bamboo shelters on hilly land in the Cox’s Bazar region of southern Bangladesh – an area prone to some of the world’s worst monsoon conditions.
In response to questions, Mr. Millman said that landslides were the main threat; some 43,200 households had received shelter upgrade kits specifically to anchor their homes in at-risk areas. He had seen reports of deaths in shelters or camps, but for quite a wide range of threats like violence, crime, elephant stampedes and accidents.
Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Tarik Jasarevic, for the World Health Organization, elaborating on what his colleague said last week about the end of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said the declaration was expected to be made tomorrow late morning Geneva time. It would be made in Kinshasa by the Ministry of Health, in the presence of the Director-General of WHO, Dr. Tedros. WHO would issue a press release soon after the declaration was made. This outbreak claimed 29 deaths, 24 persons were considered to be Ebola survivors, more than 3,330 persons were vaccinated, and more than 1,700 contacts were identified and followed. Tomorrow would be exactly 42 days since the last case tested negative for the second time and was released from care.
The first report of the Ebola outbreak was on 3 May, then the team from the Ministry of Health and supported by WHO and MSG travelled and visited this area on 5 May and found five patients. On 7 May, two of those tested positive for Ebola and the outbreak was declared. A more detailed timeline was available on the WHO website.
Yemen Cholera Cases
Following a question about a WHO statement about cholera cases in Yemen issued yesterday, Tarik Jasarevic, for the World Health Organization, said he did not have further details other than that cases of cholera had been noted in Yemen and that WHO remained vigilant about the situation of cholera in Yemen and the problem of access to clean drinking water. WHO’s centres to treat cholera were still in Yemen.
Geneva Activities
Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the United Nations Information Service, said this morning the Human Rights Committee would continue the drafting of its general comment on "the right to life"; at 3 p.m., it would discuss the follow-up to its concluding observations.
A press conference by this Committee on their concluding observations and recommendations on the country reports that they had reviewed this year would be held at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, 25 July in press room 1. [The spokesperson later added that during its session, the Human Rights Committee considered the reports of Bahrain, Algeria, The Gambia, Liberia and Lao People’s Democratic Republic.]
The Committee against Torture opened its sixty-fourth session yesterday, 23 July. During the session, the Committee would consider the reports submitted by Mauritania and the Russian Federation, according to the following schedule:
Mauritania: Tuesday, 24 July (morning), and Wednesday, 25 July (afternoon)
Russian Federation: Wednesday, 25 July (morning), and Thursday, 26 July (afternoon).
Ms. Vellucci said the Sport Integrity Forum, organized by the Sport Integrity Global Alliance, would be held at the Palais des Nations on Thursday, 26 July. Director-General Michael Møller of the United Nations Office at Geneva, would open the Forum. A press release with more details was available at the back of the room.
In response to a question on the White Helmets in Syria, Ms. Vellucci referred to a statement made by a Spokesperson for the Secretary-General yesterday that the United Nations had not been involved in the transfer of the White Helmets.
Andej Mahecic, of the High Commissioner for Refugees, said UNHCR had not been
involved in the evacuation this weekend. Upon the request of several United
Nations Member States, including the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany, and
after being authorised by the Jordanian authorities, the United Nations had received
in Jordan 422 Syrian nationals from southern Syria, who were considered at risk
and were seeking asylum. UNHCR was working with colleagues in Jordan to
relocate these people to the countries that had offered protection to them.
Ms. Vellucci said Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura was scheduled to brief the
Security Council tomorrow at 10 a.m. EST.