The last convoy was last Friday, and it brought water, hygiene products, medicines, shelter kits and other winter supplies to more than 7,500 people in three different communities in the Kherson region. Over the past four weeks, the UN and our partners sent six inter-agency humanitarian convoys to support people in areas of the Kharkiv and Kherson regions which have recently become accessible to international organizations. Turning to Ukraine, our humanitarian colleagues there continue to expand their operations and pre-position supplies to deliver to areas which are experiencing active hostilities as well as to places that have recently shifted control. And the remarks that he delivered have been shared they are in your inboxes. And tomorrow, he will be addressing reporters in the morning, I believe, and holding bilateral meetings with leaders on the sidelines of the Summit.

And on climate, the Secretary-General said that more climate ambition is needed from ASEAN countries, starting with the elimination of all new coal investments and the phasing out of coal power by 2030 for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, and 2040 for all others. This is the only route to lasting peace and security, he said. On the subject of Myanmar, the Secretary-General repeated his call on the Myanmar authorities to release all political prisoners and to launch an inclusive process immediately to return to a democratic transition. “A divided global economy, with two different sets of rules, two dominant currencies, two internets, and two conflicting strategies on artificial intelligence, would undermine the world’s capacity to respond to the dramatic challenges we face,” he said, adding that this decoupling must be avoided at all costs and that Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states are particularly well-placed to help bridge it. He also warned that there is a growing risk that the global economy will be divided into two parts, led by the two biggest economies - the United States and China. He told leaders that geopolitical divides are contributing to global insecurity, triggering new conflicts and making it increasingly difficult to end old ones. Early this morning, the Secretary-General spoke at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-United Nations Summit, which is taking place in Phnom Penh, in Cambodia. Let me start with a note on the Secretary-General’s travels. The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s noon briefing by Stephanie Tremblay, Associate Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.

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