By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18 2025 – In the Arab region, a thought-to-be oil oasis, green jobs constitute 29 percent of energy sector roles, and 23 percent of the oil and gas sector. These numbers signify a push towards sustainable business and practices, with the Arab region striving to get away from oil, in their advancement towards the completion of the SDGs on time for 2030.

New primary data from the UNESCWA Skills Monitor shows that the entire region is on a steady upward trajectory in terms of the share of green jobs in the online job market space. According to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asis (UNESCWA), these postings only consist of 5.06 percent of postings as of 2024, but it represents significant growth from just around 3.5 percent in 2021.

The total share of green jobs by country in the Arab region, and the United States by comparison. Credit: Maximilian Malawista

Saudi Arabia has led this shift in sustainable energy roles with green jobs accounting for 6.22 percent of their job market. This movement reflects their significant investment into economic diversification and green initiatives in line with Saudi Vision 2030, which closely mirrors the UN 2030 agenda.

In Qatar and Oman the rates are lower, with green jobs comprising 4.59 percent and 3.53 percent of their respective job markets, followed by the rest of the region shortly behind. In contrast, a leading share of green jobs globally, the United States, features 11.40 percent, which is 7.55 percent higher than the average of 3.85 percent set by the Arab region. These numbers appear not to be linked by wealth as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt are below Qatar in energy roles, while the UAE has a 514 billion nominal GDP followed by Egypt with a 396 billion nominal GDP compared to Qatar’s 213 billion nominal GDP.

Green job integration

In the oil and gas sectors, Saudi Arabia leads again with 28 percent of their roles being green, followed by Oman (22.5 percent), Qatar (16 percent) and the UAE (15 percent). Data from UNESCWA shows that managerial and engineering positions account for the majority of occupations with the highest green demand in the Arab region. The top six jobs leading with the highest green shares are: project managers, health and safety engineers, health safety and environmental managers, electrical engineers, construction engineers, and civil engineers. The presence of engineering jobs with the highest combined share of green demand represents the Arab region’s full push to turn its infrastructure into a green oasis.

In the United States, the composition across specific industries is different, with technician roles for energy production and the environment being much higher in share than that of engineering roles. As UNESCWA noted in their brief: “These differences reflect diverse national approaches to sustainability, shaped by energy policies and strategic investments in green technologies.”

From only one year ago, green jobs within the energy sector in the Arab region represented 23.26 percent of the entire market of energy, however this number jumped up to 29.10 percent, marking a 5.93 percent jump in a very short amount of time.

The Arab region, as the report reiterates, leads in energy transformation across the oil and gas sectors. This push represents multiple nations — mostly Gulf Cooperation Council members — pushing for economic diversification away from majority oil-dominated economies, especially in Saudi Arabia. In these countries’ pursuits of further economic diversification, the result will be the creation of massive quantities of green energy roles, which will only increase at a faster rate to the point of a near carbon-zero future.

UNESCWA proposed four policy recommendations which seek to encourage green job growth:

• • Boost green investments and corporate sustainability – by expanding green bonds, medium and small sized enterprise funding, and sustainability linked loans for clean technology and renewable energy.

• • Enhance education and workforce development for green jobs – integrating sustainability into national curriculums, expand vocational and technical education and training programs, provide re-skilling initiatives for workers within high-carbon industries.

• • Integrate green jobs into national development strategies – strengthen regional cooperations for green job creation, climate action plans, economic recovery programs which align workforce planning with sustainability goals, and embedded green employment targets within industrial policies.

• Strengthen data and monitoring for green job growth – make data publicly available to help policymakers, businesses, and education institutions in shaping the green workforces.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18 2025 – When the 193-member General Assembly commemorates the UN’s 80th anniversary during a high-level meeting in mid-September, how many political leaders and delegates will be barred from entering the United States –despite the 1947 US-UN Host Country Agreement?

US President Donald Trump last June issued a Proclamation titled Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats.

This White House proclamation –a virtual black List –restricts travel into the U.S. by nationals from 19 countries who will be refused US visas.

The list includes Afghanistan, Myanmar, Burundi, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, and Yemen. In addition, Egypt is under review.

But will this result in barring political leaders and UN delegates?

Any denial of visas will be a violation of Sections 11-14 of the Host Country agreement which ensures “that representatives of member states, UN officials, and others with legitimate business can access the headquarters district without significant impediments.”

But the agreement also stipulates the US will facilitate the issuance of visas for those with UN-related travel needs.

That Agreement, along with the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, outlines the legal framework for the UN’s presence and operations in the US. It covers aspects like the privileges and immunities of UN representatives, officials, and their families, as well as the handling of disputes and other practical matters.

So far, the US has imposed sanctions on UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese because of her critical report on Israel.

Reacting to the announcement, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters last month the imposition of sanctions on UN Special Rapporteurs sets a “dangerous precedent.”

“The use of unilateral sanctions against Special Rapporteurs or any other UN expert or official is unacceptable,” he told journalists.

He also highlighted the independent mandate and role of the Special Rapporteurs, noting that Member States “are perfectly entitled to their views and to disagree with” the experts’ reports.

“But we encourage them to engage with the UN’s human rights architecture,” he added.

Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, urged the US to reverse the sanctions and said that the attacks and threats against Albanese and other Human Rights Council mandate-holders “must stop.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. has also imposed sanctions on officials of the Palestinian Authority and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) accusing them of undermining peace efforts with Israel —even as other Western powers moved toward recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Judging by the Trump administration’s track record, and its violations of federal rules and legislation, will the US adhere to the Host Country agreement or ignore it?

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), told IPS “knowing Trump’s track record, he will find any way to tamper with any system or law just so that people will talk about it—good, bad, or in between, as long as he is front and center of what’s happening around him.”

He doesn’t only want to assert authoritarian governance here in the United States; he is also trying to project himself as the leader of the whole world, wanting foreign leaders to bow to him, said Dr Ben-Meir.

“Many of his actions, including his deeply misguided tariffs, are his attempt to use his power to show that he is above all other leaders in the world. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to create problems for the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in September.”

Most likely, he will block any UNSC resolution critical of Israel and any resolution recognizing a Palestinian state.

Dr Ben-Meir also pointed out that Trump’s executive order, while reviving accusations of xenophobia and isolationism, provides exceptions for those traveling on diplomatic visas, which is intended for those traveling to and from the United Nations Headquarters District.

“Unless there is some sort of extraordinary interference from Trump, his travel ban on 19 countries should not impact those nations’ diplomats traveling to the United States for the General Assembly, or other United Nations business,” he pointed out.

Mandeep S. Tiwana, Secretary General, CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations (CSOs), told IPS the United States derives immense economic and political benefits from hosting the UN headquarters in New York. It would be highly unwise to restrict the entry of foreign government and civil society representatives to attend UN sessions and participate in UN related meetings.

“The United States Government has a legal responsibility to facilitate their entry to support the UN’s mission to secure peace, justice and sustainability in the world,” he said.

Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy and national director, RootsAction.org, told IPS contempt for the United Nations is nothing new coming from Washington, although it has varied in extent and candor over the decades.

“While U.S. administrations have always sought to bend the world body to its nationalistic will, some U.S. presidents have participated in the UN with an extent of good faith”.

The current Trump administration, he pointed out, is at the opposite end of the spectrum, making no effort to conceal its utter contempt for the precepts of the UN and making no effort to do anything but undermine it.

“Barring diplomats from entering the United States to participate in UN proceedings is beyond the pale – an expression of extreme arrogance that violates not only the basic principles of the UN but also conveys the global aspirations of U.S. foreign policy. The de facto approach is “Do as we say, not as we do.”

There is much to condemn in the human rights records of many of the governments that the Trump regime seeks to bar from entrance to the United States, he argued. At the same time, a country notably absent from the list is Israel, which is waging a genocidal war on Palestinian people made possible by massive nonstop arms shipments from the USA.

While the U.S. exercises veto power and leverage within the Security Council, the General Assembly is a venue where justified distrust and anger toward the United States can only grow, given the policies of the U.S government, declared Solomon, author, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.”

Meanwhile, the United States has, in the past. been accused of imposing unfair travel restrictions on U.N. diplomats in the country.

Back in August 2000, the Russian Federation, Iraq and Cuba protested the “discriminatory” treatment, which they say targets countries that displease the U.S.

Pleading national security concerns, Washington has long placed tight restrictions, in a bygone era, on diplomats from several “unfriendly” nations, including those deemed “terrorist states,” particularly Cuba, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria and Libya.

U.N. diplomats from these countries, posted in New York, also have to obtain permission from the U.S. State Department to travel outside a 25-mile radius from New York City.

When former Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, accused of war crimes, was refused a US visa to attend the high-level segment of the General Assembly sessions in September 2013, Hassan Ali, a senior Sudanese diplomat, registered a strong protest with the UN’s Legal Committee.

“The democratically-elected president of Sudan had been deprived of the opportunity to participate in the General Assembly because the host country, the United States, had denied him a visa, in violation of the U.N.-U.S. Headquarters Agreement. It was a great and deliberate violation of the Headquarters Agreement,” he said.

The refusal of a visa for the Sudanese president was also a political landmine because al-Bashir had been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

But one question remained unanswered: Does the United States have a right to implicitly act on an ICC ruling when Washington is not a party to the Rome Statute that created the ICC?

When Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was denied a US visa to visit New York to address the United Nations back in 1988, the General Assembly defied the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva-– perhaps for the first time in UN history–- providing a less-hostile political environment for the PLO leader.

Arafat, who first addressed the UN in 1974, took a swipe at Washington when he prefaced his statement by saying “it never occurred to me that my second meeting with this honorable Assembly, since 1974, would take place in the hospitable city of Geneva”.

This article contains excerpts from a book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That,” available on Amazon. The book is authored by Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at the UN Bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, who is also an ex-UN staffer and a former member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the General Assembly sessions. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By Jake Johnson
NEW YORK, Aug 18 2025 – Negotiators in Geneva adjourned what was expected to be the final round of plastics treaty negotiations on Friday without reaching an agreement, a failure that environmentalists blamed on the Trump-led United States, Saudi Arabia, and other powerful nations that opposed any effort to curb plastic production—the primary driver of a worsening global pollution crisis.

The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on Plastic Pollution agreed after 10 days of talks to resume negotiations at a yet-to-be-announced future date. Lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry swarmed the negotiations, working successfully to prevent a binding deal to slash plastic production. More than 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuel chemicals.

“The inability to reach an agreement in Geneva must be a wake-up call for the world: ending plastic pollution means confronting fossil fuel interests head-on,” said Graham Forbes, Greenpeace USA’s Global Plastics Campaign lead.

“The vast majority of governments want a strong agreement, yet a handful of bad actors were allowed to use process to drive such ambition into the ground. We cannot continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. The time for hesitation is over.”

The high-stakes talks marked the sixth time international negotiators have convened in an effort to craft a plastics treaty as production continues to grow and toxic pollution damages oceans, waterways, and communities across the globe. Talks in December similarly concluded without a deal.

The latest round of negotiations faltered after nations refused to rally around a pair of draft treaty documents—but for different reasons.

Supporters of a strong agreement—including Fiji, France, and Panama—objected to the exclusion of any binding plastic production cuts in the drafts, while the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and others balked at the scope of the proposals and argued any treaty should focus primarily on waste management.

The proposal unveiled Friday in a last-ditch attempt to reach consensus acknowledged that “current levels of production and consumption of plastics are unsustainable” but did not include any binding limits.

Under the current process, every nation must agree on a proposal’s inclusion in treaty text.

Countries that want a treaty must now leave this process and form a treaty of the willing. And that process must include options for voting that deny the tyranny of consensus we have watched play out here.

Agnès Pannier-Runacher, France’s minister of ecological transition, didn’t attempt to hide her fury at the outcome of the latest round of talks, calling out the “handful of countries” that “blocked the adoption of an ambitious treaty against plastic pollution” because they were “guided by short-term financial interests rather than the health of their populations and the sustainability of their economies.”

“The scientific and medical evidence is overwhelming: plastic kills. It poisons our oceans, our soils, and ultimately, it contaminates our bodies,” said Pannier-Runacher. “I am angry because France, together with the European Union and a coalition of more than 100 countries from every continent—developed and developing, determined and ambitious—did everything possible to obtain an agreement that meets the urgency of the moment: to reduce plastic production, ban the most dangerous products, and finally protect the health of our populations.”

David Azoulay, who led the delegation for the Center for International Environmental Law in Geneva, called the talks “an abject failure” and warned that any future negotiations will end similarly “if the process does not change.”

“We need a restart, not a repeat performance,” said Azoulay. “Countries that want a treaty must now leave this process and form a treaty of the willing. And that process must include options for voting that deny the tyranny of consensus we have watched play out here.”

Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Source: Common Dreams

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By Jennifer Xin-Tsu Lin Levine
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18 2025 – The UN Security Council convened today (August 18) to discuss South Sudan and the “interlinked challenges of climate change and conflict” affecting the region.

Security Council members who have joined the Joint Pledges on Climate, Peace and Security – Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and Panama – spoke at a media stakeout ahead of what the representative from Panama called a “compounding crisis” in South Sudan.

The representative for Panama noted the “interlinked challenges of climate change and conflict affecting South Sudan,” referring to climate crises causing flood, drought, minimal resources and famine, further straining peace and fostering inter-communal violence.

He highlighted worsening gender-based violence specifically, saying, “Women and girls are disproportionately and systematically affected by the intersection of climate shocks and insecurity… the breakdown of community support systems heightens the risk of gender-based violence, early marriage, abduction and exploitation, yet women and girls remain key actors in community resilience and peace-building.”

In the Security Council meeting, many other representatives echoed this concern for aid provisions. The Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee, warned Security Council members of the risks caused by lack of funding, saying, “funding cuts are leaving millions without life-saving assistance.”

According to the latest UNICEF South Sudan Humanitarian Situation Report, the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is only 28.5 percent funded over halfway through the year. Between April and July, approximately 7.7 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity, including 83,000 at risk of catastrophic conditions. Approximately 9.3 million people are in dire need of various humanitarian assistance.

The primary conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the country’s official military, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, has fueled this humanitarian crisis.

Since clashes erupted in April 2023, the fighting has displaced millions internally and across borders – contributing to famine, widespread violence and food insecurity.

The conflict heightened further in March of 2025 when First Vice President Riek Machar was arrested on charges of stirring up rebellion. His arrest effectively ended the 2018 peace agreement which had ended the civil war and established a government – since then, political legitimacy across the country has grown steadily weaker. Many see the upcoming December elections as a chance to reinstate democracy and fair, representative governance.

Murithi Mutiga, Program Director for Africa at the International Crisis Group, said, “The immediate priority should be to prevent any escalation of violence.”

He encouraged UN member states with close ties to South Sudan like Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and Tanzania to “call for opposing military actions to create an opportunity for dialogue between the government and opposition groups” and other Security Council members to amplify these discussions without overtaking them.

The representative from Somalia, speaking on behalf of the A3+, a group of African and Caribbean nations, echoed this statement. He said, “an African-led approach, grounded in partnership, inclusivity and respect for South Sudan’s sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity offers the most sustainable path to peace.”

The Pobee further emphasized the necessity of all stakeholders collaborating and acting in good faith to promote democracy in the upcoming elections in December.

She warned, “Failing this, the risk of a relapse into widespread violence will only grow against the background of an already unstable region. It is therefore our shared responsibility to work in close coordination and synergy to help the South Sudanese parties to avoid such an outcome. The people of South Sudan are counting on us.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById({js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

By Stefanos Fotiou
ROME, Aug 18 2025 – The global food system is under pressure from every direction – climate, conflict, inequality, and economic instability. But in Addis Ababa this July, something shifted. At the UN Food Systems Summit +4 Stocktake (UNFSS+4), over 3,500 people from 150 countries came together to confront the lack of progress and push forward solutions that can no longer wait.

Crucially, Africa wasn’t just a location for a global meeting. It led the conversation. Ethiopia showed what political commitment to transformation can deliver – investing in school feeding programmes, linking environmental restoration with jobs and food security, supporting local markets, and working across levels of government. These efforts are producing measurable outcomes under real-world conditions.

Governments that are serious about change now need to prove it. That proof depends on financing, coordination across sectors, and policies that support those making change happen

UNFSS+4 was also different in tone and structure. It didn’t rely solely on government declarations. Hundreds of civil society groups, farmers’ organizations, youth networks, research institutions, and private sector actors played an active role in shaping the Summit’s agenda and outcomes.

As Director of the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub, I was tasked with leading the team that supported this process. What I saw behind the scenes was the real engine of the Summit: a team of people – from governments, NGOs, development partners, and grassroots coalitions – working together with urgency, arguing through difficult decisions, staying focused on what mattered. The energy behind the Summit came from people who were committed to getting things done.

The outcomes reflected that. The Summit’s Call to Action spelled out the scale of the crisis:

• As many as 720 million people still go hungry;
• 2.6 billion cannot afford a healthy diet, with the situation worsening in Africa;
• Farmers are dealing with increasingly volatile climate shocks, rising costs, and unfair market conditions.

On top of that, governments are scaling back humanitarian funding. Food systems are being hit by inflation, debt, war, and ecological breakdown. And while political leaders often speak about the urgency of transformation, most continue to act as if change can wait.

UNFSS+4 focused on practical steps. First, it called for a reversal of the decline in food-related aid. People living through conflict or crisis need access to food now – and humanitarian actors need resources to reach them.

Second, it demanded progress on National Pathways – the country-level plans created after the first Food Systems Summit in 2021. These plans are where real change happens, or doesn’t. But without domestic funding and political backing, they risk stalling.

Third, it challenged public and private investors – including development banks – to back smallholder farmers, food workers, and local food economies. This means shifting incentives away from industrial monocultures and toward approaches that protect ecosystems and livelihoods. It also means connecting food policy with land use, financial systems, and public procurement, instead of treating them as separate agendas.

Finally, the Summit emphasized one point that too often gets lost in global meetings: the role of youth. Young people are organizing, farming, creating food enterprises, shaping policy debates – and demanding space to lead. The UNFSS+4 Youth Declaration, developed through months of consultations and adopted at the Summit, is a clear signal that young people are no longer asking to be included. They are already doing the work, and they expect institutions to catch up.

The obstacles ahead are real. Many governments still make food policy behind closed doors, influenced more by political calculations than public needs. Agricultural subsidies often benefit those who already hold power, rather than those feeding communities or regenerating land.

The same dynamics play out at the international level – where trade rules, financial flows, and climate decisions frequently ignore the priorities of low- and middle-income countries.

If we want transformation, we have to deal with these structures directly. That means more transparency. It means real accountability – tracking how funds are spent, who benefits, and what results are achieved. It means recognizing that technical solutions – better seeds, smarter logistics, improved data – won’t deliver much if the underlying incentives still reward extraction and exclusion.

Africa’s leadership at the Summit was not a symbolic gesture. It was a political statement: that the region hardest hit by the current food crisis is also prepared to lead efforts to fix the system.

But global actors must respond accordingly. That means more than offering praise or short-term grants. It means shifting the terms of engagement – on finance, on trade, on governance – and recognizing that power imbalances are part of the problem.

Summits often generate headlines and then fade. This one shouldn’t. With only five years left to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, and with hunger rising rather than falling, we are moving in the wrong direction. If we continue to delay action, the consequences will be measured not in targets missed, but in lives lost.

UNFSS+4 delivered a clear message: solutions already exist. What’s missing is political will, adequate funding, and a willingness to challenge the status quo. Governments that are serious about change now need to prove it. That proof depends on financing, coordination across sectors, and policies that support those making change happen.

Food is not just an economic sector. It is the foundation of human survival and dignity. And it’s time we treated it that way.

Excerpt:

Dr. Stefanos Fotiou is Director, UN Food Systems Coordination Hub