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UN chief warns ‘our world is becoming unhinged’ in general assembly opening speech
Patrick Wintour
The world is becoming unhinged as geopolitical tensions rise and the world seems incapable of coming together to respond to mounting global challenges, the UN secretary general António Guterres said in his speech opening of the UN general assembly in New York.
He warned global governance was “stuck in time” at a point when strong modern multilateral institutions are in greater need than ever before.
Reflecting on a year in which the UN has seemed paralysed by the divisions over the war in Ukraine., Guterres put those divisions in a broader context saying:
We cannot effectively address problems as they are if institutions don’t reflect the world as it is. Instead of solving problems, they risk becoming part of the problem.
He said “divides were deepening among economic and military powers, and between North and South, East and West”.
Returning to a theme that has appeared in many of his speeches for three or more years he said:
We are inching ever closer to a Great Fracture in economic and financial systems and trade relations; one that threatens a single, open internet; with diverging strategies on technology and artificial intelligence; and potentially clashing security frameworks.
The world’s response to climate change was still falling “abysmally short”, he said.
Guterres has been criticised for issuing a series of arresting but increasingly dark warnings about the plight of the world that are not achieving the impact, so his aides stressed that his speech, while candid about the challenges, was one of his most “solution heavy”.
He called for deep reforms to the “dysfunctional, outdated and unjust” international financial architecture, including a $500bn a year rescue package for those countries most heavily in debt.
On climate he demanded a Climate Solidarity Pact, in which all big emitters make extra efforts to cut emissions; and wealthier countries support emerging economies with finance and technology to do so. He pointed out: “Africa has 60%of the world’s solar capacity – but just 2% of renewable investments”.
Specifically he called for “an end to coal – by 2030 for OECD countries and 2040 for the rest of the world. An end to fossil fuel subsidies and price on carbon. Developed countries must finally deliver the $100bn for developing country climate action, as well as double adaptation finance by 2025,”
He also broke newer policy ground by putting artificial intelligence – something he described as a subject of awe and fear – at the heart of the UN agenda confirming he was appointing a high level panel to report to him on its implications by the end of the year. He suggested a new global entity on AI that could provide a source of information and expertise for Member States, equivalent to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He also was more unequivocal than sometimes in his condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and its wider damaging ramifications. He said:
If every country fulfilled its obligations under the UN Charter, the right to peace would be guaranteed. When countries break those pledges, they create a world of insecurity for everyone. Exhibit A: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The war, in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law, has unleashed a nexus of horror: lives destroyed; human rights abused; families torn apart; children traumatized; hopes and dreams shattered. Beyond Ukraine, the war has serious implications for us all. Nuclear threats put us all at risk. Ignoring global treaties and conventions makes us all less safe. And the poisoning of global diplomacy obstructs progress across the board.
Guterres also used his speech to present the disastrous recent floods in Derna, Libya, as “a snapshot of the state of our world” and sign of what happens when climate change meets poor governance. He said those who died in Derna were “victims of years of conflict, victims of climate chaos, victims of leaders – near and far – who failed to find a way to peace. The people of Derna lived and died in the epicentre of that indifference – as the skies unleashed 100 times the monthly rainfall in 24 hours … as dams broke after years of war and neglect”.
Key events
Lula calls for work ‘to create space for negotiations’ on Ukraine war
Lula says the war in Ukraine “exposes our collective inability” to enforce the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.
The Brazilian president says:
We do not underestimate the difficulties in achieving peace, but no solution will be lasting if it is not based on dialogue.
I have reiterated that work needs to be done to create space for negotiations.
Lula says Amazon is ‘speaking for itself’ as he urges more to fight climate change
Lula says he returned as Brazil’s president with a mission to rebuild the nation as a “sovereign, fair, sustainable, supportive” country.
He says Brazil is committed to implementing all 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), and that it has launched a plan to bring together a series of initiatives to reduce poverty and food insecurity.
Lula vows to fight femicide and all forms of violence against women, and to advocate for the rights of the LGBTQI groups and people of disabilities.
On the issue of climate change, the Brazilian leader says it is vulnerable populations in the global south who are most affected.
The richest 10% of the world’s population are responsible for almost half of all carbon released into the atmosphere. We developing countries do not want to repeat this model.
He says Brazil is the forefront of the energy transition, and that 87% of the country’s electrical power comes from clean and renewable sources.
He says deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has been reduced by 48%, adding that there are 50 million South Americans living in the Amazon.
The whole world has always talked about the Amazon – now the Amazon is speaking for itself.
Lula begins his speech by saying that he first stood on the UN’s general assembly debate podium exactly 20 years, where he expressed confidence “in the human capacity to overcome challenges and evolve toward superior forms of coexistence”. He says he maintains that “unshakable trust in humanity”, 20 years on.
In 2003, the world had not yet realised the severity of the climate crisis which “knocks on our doors, destroys our homes, our cities, our countries, kills and imposes losses and suffering on our brothers, especially the poorest”, he says.
Lula says hunger was the central theme of his speech 20 years ago, and the world now is increasingly unequal where the 10 richest billionaires have more wealth than the poorest 40% of humanity.
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will make the first speech at the general debate, as is tradition.
AP reports that early on, Brazil ventured forward when no other country would volunteer to speak first. Decades later, the South American country retains the pole position at the debate.
As the host country, the US president Joe Biden will speak after Lula.
Biden to warn of Russia’s ability to ‘brutalize Ukraine without consequence’ if UN doesn’t uphold charter
Julian Borger
According to excerpts from his speech released by the White House, Joe Biden will urge the UN general assembly to uphold the UN Charter in its approach to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The US and other supporters of Ukraine are very conscious that many countries at the UN, especially the developing nations in the Group of 77, are becoming restive at the focus on Ukraine at the UN, when the death toll from conflict, famine and climate change is so enormous in the Global South. Biden will make clear in his remarks he takes these concerns seriously.
Biden will say:
The United States seeks a more secure, more prosperous, more equitable world for all people, because we know our future is bound up with yours. And no nation can meet the challenges of today alone.
He will frame the Ukraine war as a matter of principle, a matter of national sovereignty and territorial integrity that is essential to all UN members.
“Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalise Ukraine without consequence,” Biden will say.
But I ask you this: If we abandon the core principles of the UN Charter to appease an aggressor, can any member state feel confident that they are protected? If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?
The answer is no. We must stand up to this naked aggression today to deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow,” the president will say.
That is why the United States together with our Allies and partners around the world will continue to stand with the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity – and their freedom.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has arrived for the opening of the UN’s general assembly general debate. He is scheduled to take the podium later this morning.
UN chief warns ‘our world is becoming unhinged’ in general assembly opening speech
Patrick Wintour
The world is becoming unhinged as geopolitical tensions rise and the world seems incapable of coming together to respond to mounting global challenges, the UN secretary general António Guterres said in his speech opening of the UN general assembly in New York.
He warned global governance was “stuck in time” at a point when strong modern multilateral institutions are in greater need than ever before.
Reflecting on a year in which the UN has seemed paralysed by the divisions over the war in Ukraine., Guterres put those divisions in a broader context saying:
We cannot effectively address problems as they are if institutions don’t reflect the world as it is. Instead of solving problems, they risk becoming part of the problem.
He said “divides were deepening among economic and military powers, and between North and South, East and West”.
Returning to a theme that has appeared in many of his speeches for three or more years he said:
We are inching ever closer to a Great Fracture in economic and financial systems and trade relations; one that threatens a single, open internet; with diverging strategies on technology and artificial intelligence; and potentially clashing security frameworks.
The world’s response to climate change was still falling “abysmally short”, he said.
Guterres has been criticised for issuing a series of arresting but increasingly dark warnings about the plight of the world that are not achieving the impact, so his aides stressed that his speech, while candid about the challenges, was one of his most “solution heavy”.
He called for deep reforms to the “dysfunctional, outdated and unjust” international financial architecture, including a $500bn a year rescue package for those countries most heavily in debt.
On climate he demanded a Climate Solidarity Pact, in which all big emitters make extra efforts to cut emissions; and wealthier countries support emerging economies with finance and technology to do so. He pointed out: “Africa has 60%of the world’s solar capacity – but just 2% of renewable investments”.
Specifically he called for “an end to coal – by 2030 for OECD countries and 2040 for the rest of the world. An end to fossil fuel subsidies and price on carbon. Developed countries must finally deliver the $100bn for developing country climate action, as well as double adaptation finance by 2025,”
He also broke newer policy ground by putting artificial intelligence – something he described as a subject of awe and fear – at the heart of the UN agenda confirming he was appointing a high level panel to report to him on its implications by the end of the year. He suggested a new global entity on AI that could provide a source of information and expertise for Member States, equivalent to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He also was more unequivocal than sometimes in his condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and its wider damaging ramifications. He said:
If every country fulfilled its obligations under the UN Charter, the right to peace would be guaranteed. When countries break those pledges, they create a world of insecurity for everyone. Exhibit A: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The war, in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law, has unleashed a nexus of horror: lives destroyed; human rights abused; families torn apart; children traumatized; hopes and dreams shattered. Beyond Ukraine, the war has serious implications for us all. Nuclear threats put us all at risk. Ignoring global treaties and conventions makes us all less safe. And the poisoning of global diplomacy obstructs progress across the board.
Guterres also used his speech to present the disastrous recent floods in Derna, Libya, as “a snapshot of the state of our world” and sign of what happens when climate change meets poor governance. He said those who died in Derna were “victims of years of conflict, victims of climate chaos, victims of leaders – near and far – who failed to find a way to peace. The people of Derna lived and died in the epicentre of that indifference – as the skies unleashed 100 times the monthly rainfall in 24 hours … as dams broke after years of war and neglect”.
UN chief Guterres: Not all leaders ‘feeling the heat’ of climate change
Guterres moves on to the climate crisis, which he says is “killing people and devastating communities”. He says:
Climate change is not just a change in the weather. Climate change is changing life on our planet. It is affecting every aspect of our world.
This is only the beginning, he says.
We have just survived the hottest days, the hottest months and the hottest days on the books. Every continent, every region and every country is feeling the heat. But I’m not sure at all leaders are feeling that heat.
He says there is still time to keep rising temperatures within the 1.5 degree celsius limits and the Paris agreement, but that will require “drastic” steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
We have the receipts. G20 countries are responsible for 80% of greenhouse emissions. They must break their addiction to fossil fuels and stop new coal.
Guterres says countries such as Russia are creating a “world of insecurity” for everyone following its invasion of Ukraine, which he says has “unleashed the next phase of our lives: historic human rights abuse, families torn apart, children traumatised, hopes and dreams shattered.”
The war in Ukraine has “serious implications” for the world beyond Kyiv, he says, pointing to the collapse of the Black Sea grain initiative.
The world badly needs Ukrainian food and Russian food and fertilisers to stabilise markets and guarantee food security.
Around the world, new risks emerge as countries develop new weapons and nuclear disarmament is “at a standstill”, Guterres says.
Sudan is descending into full scale civil war. Millions have fled and the country risks splitting apart.
In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, millions are displaced and gender based violence is a horrific daily reality in a country that suffered centuries of colonial exploitation, is today overwhelmed by gang violence and still awaits international support.
In Afghanistan, the staggering 70% of the population needs humanitarian assistance with the rights of women and girls systematically denied in Myanmar, brutal violence, worsening poverty and repression and crushing hopes for a return to democracy.
UN chief Guterres: ‘Democracy is under threat’
Guterres warns that divides are widening within countries. “Democracy is under threat,” he says.
Authoritarianism is on the march, inequalities are growing, and hate speech is on the rise.
Our world “needs statesmanship, not gamesmanship and gridlock”, he says.
He says world leaders have a “social responsibility” to achieve compromise in building a common future, and says it is “time for a global compromise’”.
What we need is determination and determination which is in the DNA of our United Nations, summoning gods with the first words of the charter.
We the peoples of the United Nations, determined, determined to end the scourge of war, determined to reaffirm faith in human rights, determined to uphold justice and respect international law and determined to promote social progress and better lives for all people.
Guterres says there are many positive ways that the world is moving, bringing new opportunities for justice and balance in international relations. But “multipolarity alone cannot guarantee peace”, he says.
The world is “inching ever closer to a great fracture in economic and financial systems and trade relations”, he says, urging that it is time to “renew multilateral institutions based on 21st-century economic and political realities rooted in equity, solidarity and universality”.
Guterres calls for redesigning international financial architecture so that it serves a “global safety net for developing countries”. “I have no illusions,” he says. “Reforms are a question of power.”
UN chief Guterres: ‘Our world is becoming unhinged’ as it confronts ‘existential threats’
António Guterres, the UN’s secretary general, begins his remarks with the catastrophic flooding in Libya which left thousands of people dead.
They were “victims many times over”, he said. “Victims of years of conflict, victims of climate chaos, victims of leaders near and far, who failed to find a way to peace”.
Guterres links the victims of these climate catastrophes to the superyachts of billionaires where he describes a “sad snapshot of the state of the world”.
“Our world is becoming unhinged,” he says.
Geopolitical tensions are rising. Global challenges are mounting. And we seem incapable of coming together to respond. We confront a host of existential threats from the climate crisis to disruptive technologies, and they do so at the time of chaotic transition.
UN chief António Guterres to deliver state-of-world address
The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, will deliver his state-of-world address to open Tuesday opening of the general debate
We will be following his speech live on the blog.
Patrick Wintour
Western leaders have gone on a charm offensive on the opening day of the UN general assembly as they were forced to defend their record in meeting the organisation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), and insist that the war in Ukraine had not distracted them from this commitment to end global inequality.
At a special summit in New York amounting to a halfway stocktake on progress towards meeting the goals by the target date of 2030, all sides acknowledged there was little chance that the ambitious set of commitments set in 2015, including ending extreme poverty and safeguarding the environment, will be met on schedule.
A plea by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, for all sides to avoid recriminations about the cause of the failure and instead to use the two-day summit as a chance to make a global rescue plan was only partially met on the opening day.
The list of 17 SDGs, which includes 169 specific targets, was first adopted at the UN sustainable development summit in September 2015, and most assessments say only 15% of the targets are on track. The leaders adopted a 43-paragraph political declaration, brokered by Ireland and Qatar, that warned years of sustainable development gains were being reversed. It said:
Millions of people have fallen into poverty, hunger and malnutrition are becoming more prevalent, humanitarian needs are rising, and the impacts of climate change are more pronounced. This has led to increased inequality exacerbated by weakened international solidarity and a shortfall of trust to jointly overcome these crises.
“Instead of leaving no one behind, we risk leaving the SDGs behind … the SDGs need a global rescue plan,” Guterres told the summit.
Human rights abuses are still being committed in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region more than 10 months after a ceasefire formally ended the bloody civil war, according to a group of UN experts.
The latest report by the UN’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia said the nation’s government was failing to protect its citizens from “grave and ongoing” human rights abuses being committed by militias and Eritrean troops, who fought alongside Ethiopia’s federal military and remain in border areas of Tigray.
These human rights abuses include sexual and gender-based violence “abetted or tolerated” by the Ethiopian government, according to the report, which was released on Monday.
It said a “transitional justice” process initiated by Ethiopia’s government did not meet international standards and expressed alarm over recent increases in violence in Oromia and Amhara, Ethiopia’s two most populous regions.
The failure to implement a meaningful justice process was fostering a culture of impunity and heightening the risk of future atrocities, said the experts, who noted rising online hate speech in Ethiopia against ethnic and political groups and LGBT people.
“The conflict in Tigray, still not resolved in any comprehensive peace, continues to produce misery,” the report said.
Equally alarming, hostilities in Ethiopia are now at a national scale, with significant violations particularly in [the] Amhara region, but also ongoing in Oromia and elsewhere.
The risk to the state, as well as regional stability and the enjoyment of human rights in east Africa, cannot be overstated.
The conflict in Tigray, which erupted in November 2020 and spilled over into other regions of Ethiopia, was one of the bloodiest of recent times. It is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of people and was characterised by massacres and rape.
About 5.4 million of Tigray’s population of 6 million still rely on humanitarian assistance, although food aid to the war-battered region has been paused since mid-March, after the uncovering of a huge, nationwide scheme by officials to steal donated grain. Food aid to the whole of Ethiopia has been on hold since June.
Rifts over Ukraine disrupt UN summit on crises in the global south
Julian Borger
This year’s UN general assembly is supposed to be about the global south, addressing the social and economic development issues that many of the world’s poorer countries felt were forgotten last year in the uproar over Ukraine.
That was the intention at least, but the global rifts caused by Russia’s invasion still threaten to take centre stage. The US and its western allies have acknowledged that they cannot take the broad support of the bulk of UN members for granted in opposing Moscow’s war without paying greater attention to the priorities of the UN’s Group of 77 (G77), a loose coalition of developing countries.
The coming “high-level week” at the general assembly began with a two-day meeting on sustainable development goals (SDGs). These 17 goals – such as the eradication of poverty and hunger, and the universal provision of good healthcare and education – were set out by UN member states in 2015, with a goal for their achievement by 2030.
This general assembly marks the halfway point in their progress, and the world is on track to meet only 12% of the targets. Half a billion people are likely still to be living in poverty in 2030. Nearly 100 million children will not be in school. In some areas, progress has gone into reverse. This week’s summit on Monday and Tuesday is intended to refocus concerted international effort on them.
Patrick Wintour
The half-time show in the US is normally associated with the football Super Bowl, superstars and adverts, but the UN in the form of the film director Richard Curtis put on its own version on Monday night in New York and blew the place away.
Curtis is of course in the optimism business – his glass is so permanently half full, it overflows – and the one hour show he helped put on at the Es Devlin designed UN Sustainable Development Goals pavillion included Orlando Bloom, Al Pacino, Dia Mirza, Forest Whitaker, Sabrina Elba, singers, poet laureates, football stars, Ecuadorian activists, UN goodwill ambassadors and inspirational politicians such as Mia Mottley, the Barbados prime minister.
It was determinedly upbeat that at the halfway point the UN could still meet the Sustainable Development Goals. Those goals set 15 years and due to be met in another 15 years are way off track, but the theme of the UN show, as Anima Mohammed, the UN deputy general secretary said was that games are won or lost in the second half.
Al Pacino gave permission for the adaptation of his legendary inspirational speech in Any Given Time in which an elderly manager tries to inspire his losing team together inch by inch “to claw themselves out of hell”.
More modestly Patrice Evra, introduced as the world’s greatest left back, said recovering from a half-time deficit was all about discipline and believing in yourself. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the Game of Thrones star, pleaded for both optimism and urgency about climate change since “every indicator indicates we are heading in the wrong direction. It is not winter that is coming, I am sorry. It is a terrible summer of suffering for too many people and places”.
He said:
Choices we make will have impact for thousands of years ahead. The time for excuses and baby steps are over.
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma accompanied by the pianist and astro physist Amir Siraj led the audience on a musical journey through the mysteries of the universe.
Mottley took her audience away from her specialism, the intricacies of development finance and leveraging private capital. She said
It is hearts that move people and not always logic. Artists and musicians had a duty to communicate the need for change or else we will all have to look for a different planet to live on.
She said : “This world has perfected the art of the movement of global capital, but it does not see people to perfect the protection of migrants. Every religion says we must honour the dignity of every human life. How do we forget it when we walk into the corridors of power”. Don’t leave it to government those in power you have the agency of change.
On a night to recharge worn out if renewable batteries perhaps two young women injected the greatest charge, Salome Agbaroji, the Nigerian American youth poet and US youth poet laureate, drove the audience on a journey to an environmental paradise to what she called “the end zone, the beautiful place on our earth we call oasis”.
Finally: Helena Gualinga, a 22-year-old activist from the Kichwa Sarayaku community in the Amazon. She was intrinsic to a victory in a referendum in August to ban oil companies from continuing to drill in one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, the Yasuní national park. She said: “many people ask her what she will do next. All I can say is we will not stop here and neither should you”.
Some people say the UN does not have pulling power any more – and it is true some world leaders gave the general assembly a miss this year, but at this halfway point for the SDGs, those who showed up are definitely not giving up.
Zelenskiy to address world leaders at 78th UN general assembly
Good morning and welcome to our live blog covering the 78th session of the United Nations general assembly, where world leaders convene in New York amid a backdrop of the war in Ukraine, high food prices, a series of climate-related catastrophes, new political crises in west Africa and Latin America and economic instability.
Heads of state and government from at least 145 countries are expected to take the dais at this year’s general assembly, presided over by Trinidad and Tobago’s Dennis Francis. Among those scheduled to speak on Tuesday are Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the US president Joe Biden, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy – who is appearing at the UN in person for the first time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of his country.
But there are some notable absences. The leaders of the UK, France, China and Russia will not be attending, meaning Biden will the sole leader of the UN security council’s five permanent members to appear at the UN. Leaders from major countries such as India and Mexico are also slated to send ministers in their steads.
Last year’s UN general assembly session was dominated by the war in Ukraine, and representatives from Africa, Asia and Latin America – often called the global south – hope this year’s meeting will focus on their concerns about development instead. The 2023 general assembly marks a halfway point after the UN’s adoption of a collection of “sustainable development goals” (SDGs) aimed at tackling some of the most pressing global challenges – poverty, access to clean water, environmental protection, gender inequalities, and quality education. At current rates, not a single one will be achieved.
Here’s what we’ll be paying particularly close attention to today:
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9am Eastern time. António Guterres, the UN’s secretary general, will deliver his state-of-the-world address at Tuesday’s opening of what is called the general debate.
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Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be the first world leader to address the general assembly, in a tradition dating to 1955.
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US president Joe Biden will address the assembly next, in a speech that is likely to repeat his criticisms of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and emphasise the US’s desire to address challenges in the developing world.
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy will also speak at the general assembly on Tuesday, where he will aim to convince leaders from the global south to back Kyiv against Russia. Zelenskiy is also scheduled to speak at the UN security council meeting on Wednesday.
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Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to use his speech to push for a deal to export Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea to be revived, after Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin withdrew from the UN-backed initiative.
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