The outbreak and continuation of the crisis in Ukraine has a lot to do with the United States, said Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, at a high-level briefing of the Security Council marking the 1,000 days of the crisis on Monday. Geng said that the crisis is currently at a crossroads and a critical juncture. On the one hand, the fighting on the ground is continuing, the humanitarian crisis is worsening, and the spillover effects are intensifying. Both parties to the conflict keep launching large-scale attacks against each other, which have been expanding in recent days. On the other hand, the international community has increasingly focused on settling through negotiations and pushing for peace, and the conditions for the international community to promote peace are gradually accumulating.
Geng reiterated that history has proven time and again that military means will not bring lasting peace and that all conflicts will, in the final analysis, end at the negotiating table. he said China once again calls on the parties to the conflict to demonstrate political will, launch peace talks as soon as possible, and China once again calls on the international community to provide support and create conditions to this end and jointly scale up peace efforts to form synergy in promoting peace through negotiations.
Geng also refuted the U.S. representative's slander and smear against China.
"I just want to briefly point out here that the outbreak and continuation of the crisis in Ukraine has a lot to do with the United States. Whether there can be an early ceasefire and a political settlement in the future will also depend, to a considerable extent, on the attitude and actions of the United States. We hope that the U.S. behavior will stand the judgment of future generations and the test of history," Geng said.
Ukraine crisis has much to do with US: Chinese envoy
Ukraine crisis has much to do with US: Chinese envoy
Ministers of Environment are meeting this week at the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or COP29, in Azerbaijan's capital Baku to finalize the new global climate finance goal.
As the conference enters its critical second half on Monday, delegations from around 200 Paris Agreement signing parties have been working on the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG), a new finance initiative to succeed the COP15 goal of having developed countries to mobilize 100 billion U.S. dollars to support climate action in developing countries.
But there is still "a ton of work to do" to ensure COP29 and the NCQG delivery, according to a news release held by the COP29 presidium and the UNFCCC secretariat on Monday.
One of the major contentious issues is that, certain developed countries regard climate finance as charities and attempted to involve larger developing economies into obliged contributors as a prerequisite to scale up climate finance in the first week of negotiations.
"I've been very blunt, climate finance is not charity, it is a hundred percent in every nation's interest to protect their economies and people from rampant climate impacts," said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell.
Despite the complaints, the original 100 billion dollar goal was not achieved until 2022, with only a minor portion going to low-income countries and a quarter to Africa, according to the United Nations.
"A good finance shall move us into a just transition, just and equitable transition I must add," said Ama Ethel, chief negotiator of the African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change.
With time running out for COP29 to present a final plan and the world to achieve the 1.5-degree climate target, countries must take rapid and solid actions to address the imminent global challenge.
"The bottom line is we're a long way from halving global emissions this decade, so progress at COP29 is absolutely essential. And we must help countries to pick up the pace over this final week," said Stiell.
COP29 tries to deliver new climate finance goal
