United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has warned world leaders this Tuesday, at the annual UN meeting, that inequality is creating an “unsustainable world.”
At the annual United Nations meeting of global leaders, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “impunity, inequality, and uncertainty are creating an unsustainable world.”
“We can’t go on like this,” he stated at the General Assembly’s annual debate involving presidents, prime ministers, monarchs, and other leaders. Associated Press reported that Guterres cited multiple geopolitical divisions, multiple wars, climate change, and a rise in new dangerous weapons as leading humanity “towards the unimaginable – a powder keg that risks engulfing the world.”
“The challenges we face are solvable,” he said, but in order to do so, international leaders must confront the “uncertainty of unmanaged risks, the inequality that underlies injustices and grievances and the impunity that undermines international law and the U.N.‘s founding principles,” Edith Lederer wrote for AP. Guterres spoke on how leaders need to unite, and used an analogy regarding the game Monopoly to speak on the current conflicts.
“Today, a growing number of governments and others feel entitled to a ‘get out of jail free’ card.”
The annual meeting of the UN has placed major focus on the ongoing and increasing global divisions that are occurring, specifically the wars in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan. Citing these wars they also discussed the threat of an even greater conflict that could grow in the Middle East.
In a preview of his opening speech at the “Summit of the Future” event on Sunday, Guterres placed focus on the conflicts occurring throughout the Middle East, as well as the state of the “global security system which is threatened by geopolitical divides, nuclear posturing, and the development of new weapons and theaters of war,” he stated.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters last week that the main focus for the United States is to end the “scourge of war” that is impacting around 2 billion people worldwide living in conflict-affected areas.
“The most vulnerable around the world are counting on us to make progress, to make change, to bring about a sense of hope for them.”
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian all spoke on the opening day of the event.
David Miliband, the International Rescue Committee President, told leaders about the 1945 San Francisco conference in which the UN was established. At the time, then-US President Harry Truman wanted world leaders and delegates to reject the idea of “might is right,” which refers to the idea that individuals in power determine society’s justice and morality systems. Instead, Truman wanted to reverse the saying to “right makes might,” a concept forever ingrained within the UN charter.
“Almost 80 years later, we have seen the terrible consequences of the failure to flip this equation. In contexts like Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, might is making right,” Miliband said.
The meeting presented a 42-page “Pact for the Future” which has the goal of bringing divided nations together to truly combat the conflicts of the 21st century, ranging from climate change to AI to inequality.
“‘Pact for the Future’ challenges leaders of the 193 U.N. member nations to turn promises into real actions that make a difference to the lives of the world’s more than 8 billion people,” Lederer wrote.
“We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink,” Guterres said.
“By adopting the pact, leaders unlocked the door. Now it is our common destiny to walk through it. That demands not just agreement, but action,” he stated.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
