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UN INFORMATION SERVICE GENEVA PRESS BRIEFING
7 August 2026
Rolando Gómez, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section at the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired a hybrid press briefing, which was attended by spokespersons of the World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization.
Mr. Gómez, for the United Nations Information Service, read out a statement of the Secretary-General issued yesterday regarding recent events in Ukraine, in which Mr. Guterres strongly condemned “the latest large-scale missile and drone attacks by the armed forces of the Russian Federation on Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine, that reportedly killed and injured dozens of civilians, and led to extensive damage to civilian infrastructure”. The Secretary-General reiterated his “call for urgent de-escalation, leading to a full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire and for a just, sustainable and comprehensive peace, in line with international law, including the UN Charter and relevant UN resolutions”.
Mr. Gómez also quoted a statement by the Security Council, dated today, in which its members had condemned “in the strongest terms, the heinous and cowardly suicide terrorist attack outside a police station in Kabal, Swat District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan, on 2 August 2026.”
Update on Ebola
Answering questions from journalists, Tarik Jašarević, for the World Health Organization (WHO), said the WHO Technical Advisory Group on candidate vaccine prioritization should publish very soon a report on the state of treatment and vaccines against Ebola, including new data on the efficacy of existing vaccines against previous strains.
Drought in Europe
Journalists also requested an update on the drought situation in Europe and the prospects for the coming weeks and months. Clare Nullis, for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), mentioned, among others, extreme heat in the Republic of Korea and Japan, as well as warnings by Météo Suisse of more high temperatures coming next week, with no rainfall in sight. During next Tuesday’s press briefing, she would try and bring experts with more specific knowledge on the prospects regarding the drought in Europe.
Announcements
Rolando Gómez, for the United Nations Information Service (UNIS), informed that the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) would open its 118th session next Monday, 10 August, at 10 a.m. During this session, the Committee would review reports submitted by Kuwait (10-11 August), India (11-12 August), Honduras (12- 13 August), and Finland (17-18 August). The session would end on 25 August.
Also, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) would open its 35th session on Wednesday, 12 August, at 10 a.m. The Committee would review the reports of Qatar (12-13 August), Sri Lanka (14 August), Lithuania (17-18 August), Chili (18-19 August), and Slovakia (20 August). The session would end on 27 August.
9 August was the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples.
Finally, a small ceremony would be held today at 11 a.m. to mark the arrival of five new peacocks in the Ariana Park around the Palais des Nations, donated to the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) by the Permanent Mission of India to UNOG.
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New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
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Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
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Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
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Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
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Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
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