World leaders are returning to the United Nations in New York this week with a focus on boosting efforts to fight both climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, which last year forced them to send video statements for the annual gathering.
As the coronavirus still rages amid an inequitable vaccine rollout, about a third of the 193 U.N. states are planning to again send videos, but presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers for the remainder are due to travel to the United States.
Should he change his mind, New York City has set up a van outside the United Nations for the week to supply free testing and free shots of the single-dose Johnson & JohnsonU.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Reuters that the discussions around how many traveling diplomats might have been immunized illustrated "how dramatic the inequality is today in relation to vaccination." He is pushing for a global plan to vaccinate 70% of the world by the first half of next year.
His U.N. envoy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said Biden would "speak to our top priorities: ending the COVID-19 pandemic; combating climate change ... and defending human rights, democracy, and the international rules-based order."
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