2023-09-19 07:58:02
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Leaders of a world fractured by war, climate change and persistent inequality gathered under the same roof Tuesday and heard the head of the United Nations urge them to take common action to address the enormous challenges facing them. humanity faces, starting with its own speeches on the most global stage.
“People look to their leaders for a way out of this chaos,” Secretary-General António Guterres said ahead of the annual summit of presidents, prime ministers and monarchs at the General Assembly.
The world needs action now, not just more words, to deal with a worsening climate emergency, growing conflicts, “drastic technological disruptions” and a global cost-of-living crisis that is increasing hunger and poverty, he said. .
“However, in the face of these and other things,” Guterres lamented, “geopolitical divisions undermine our ability to respond.”
The weeklong session, the first fully in-person summit of world leaders since the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global travel, has 145 leaders’ speeches scheduled. It is a high number that reflects the multitude of crises and conflicts.
But for the first time in years, US President Joe Biden, who will speak shortly after the UN chief, will be the only leader of the five powerful veto-wielding countries on the UN Security Council to address to the 193-member assembly.
Nor Xi Jinping, from China; Neither Vladimir Putin, of Russia, nor Emmanuel Macron, of France, nor Rishi Sunak, of Great Britain, will be at the United Nations headquarters this year. That should leave the spotlight to the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, who will make his first appearance on the assembly stage on Tuesday, and Biden, with a special interest in his words about China, Russia and Ukraine.
The absence of leaders from four of the Security Council’s powers has caused unrest among developing countries that want the world’s most influential countries to listen to their demands, such as funds to begin to close the growing gap between the world’s haves and have-nots. .
The G77, a large United Nations group of developing countries that already has 134 members, including China, has pushed hard for this year’s event to focus on the 17 UN goals approved by world leaders in 2015. Progress is far behind when half of the deadline until 2030 has already passed.
At a two-day summit to take action toward those goals, Guterres cited the grim conclusions of a U.N. report released in July. 15% of the approximately 140 specific goals to achieve the 17 objectives of the 2030 Agenda are on track. Many are going in the opposite direction and none of them are expected to be achieved in the next 7 years.
Among the various goals are ending extreme hunger and poverty, ensuring that all children receive a quality secondary education, achieving gender equality and making significant progress in the fight against climate change, all by 2030.
At the current rate, the report noted, 575 million people will continue to live in extreme poverty and 84 million children will not even go to primary school in 2030, and it will take 286 years to achieve equality between men and women.
At the opening of the summit on Monday, Guterres told the leaders that he called on them to rescue the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that they promised in 2015 to build “a world of health, progress and opportunity” for all, and pay to achieve it.
Shortly after his intervention, leaders of the 193 member states approved by consensus a 10-page political declaration that recognizes that the goals are “in danger.” But the document reiterates more than a dozen times, in different ways, the leaders’ commitment to meeting the objectives, reiterating their individual importance.
The statement does not offer many concrete plans, but Guterres said he was “very encouraged,” especially by the commitment to improve developing countries’ access to the “fuel necessary” to reach the financial goal. He mentioned support for a stimulus package of at least $500 billion annually to offset the difficult market conditions facing developing countries.
Leaders were expected to make promises at the summit with a view to meeting the sustainable development goals.
For example, Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who chairs the United Nations group of least developed countries, said they need a “huge increase in affordable financing,” including through the Agenda 2030 stimulus package. Foreign investment in less developed countries, he noted, fell by around 30% in 2022 compared to the previous year. The president urged developed countries to be more generous in their aid to the poorest countries.
During the week of the summit there will also be hundreds of side events.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, told reporters after a closed-door meeting to try to revive the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, begun decades ago, that there is a “firm commitment to the two-way solution.” state”.
The meeting organized by the EU, the Arab League and other countries had 60 participants, and Borrell described it as a “good starting point.”
There was an “injection of new political will,” Borrell said, and three high-level working groups were established to study what a peace between Israelis and Palestinians would look like. The groups will start working in Brussels in a month.
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