UNGA Briefing: Security Council, climate summit and what else is going on at the United Nations

UNITED NATIONS — It’s Day 2 of the U.N. General Assembly high-level meeting that brings world leaders together at U.N. headquarters in New York. Here are the highlights of what happened Tuesday at the U.N. and what to keep an eye on Wednesday. Follow our live updates to keep up with developments all week.

— Motorcades and barricades choked midtown Manhattan as the world’s top dignitaries convened for the first day of the U.N. General Assembly’s annual meeting, which kicked off with a stern speech from U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.

— The first day saw speeches from high-profile leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

— While speeches have likely been in the works for a while, the addresses Tuesday still referenced very recent events — from last week’s floods in Libya to renewed hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh.

— Speech count: 37, including opening speeches from the secretary-general and General Assembly president

— Key speeches: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni,Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová, Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, Marshall Islands President David Kabua

— The U.N. Security Council will also meet. On the agenda: “maintenance of peace and security in Ukraine.” That country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is expected to attend.

— Also happening: the U.N. Climate Ambition Summit, where only leaders from nations that bring ideas for new and meaningful action will be allowed to speak.

— On the sidelines, U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will finally meet for the first time since Israel’s leader took office again. They’re meeting in New York, and a large anti-Netanyahu demonstration is expected at the same time.

— Many speeches have directly invoked several world crises, but no single issue has quite dominated the discourse yet. Will that change Wednesday?

“I want them to live in the times in which the human being knew how to cease killing itself on the planet and managed, understanding its own cultural diversity, to fulfill the expansion of the virus of life through the stars of the universe.”

— Colombian President Gustavo Petro, speaking of his grandchildren in an address full of literary flourishes.

3: The number of women who spoke from the rostrum on Tuesday.

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