The world “is entering the era of chaos”The UN Secretary General warned this Thursday, Antonio Guterreswhen presenting before the General Assembly its work priorities for 2024.
Guterres described today's world as “a dangerous and unpredictable law of the jungle (where total impunity reigns)”with threats such as a runaway climate crisis, unregulated artificial intelligence, unrepresentative international institutions and increasingly acute inequalities.
The Portuguese politician, who is now entering his eighth year at the head of the organization, said that the international system has two primary emergencies: the reform of the UN Security Council, “which has never been so bad” due to its divisions, and that of the international financial institutions, whose design is “outdated, dysfunctional and unfair”, in addition to “favoring the rich countries that designed it.”
He recalled that this year half of humanity will go to elections at a time when “More and more people are losing trust in institutions and faith in the political process.”
UN Secretary General, António Guterres.
An account of deadly conflicts
Guterres recalled that armed conflicts in the world have “trapped millions of people for whom life is a daily and mortal hell”both for those who die and for those who flee from violence.
He cited, in this order, Gaza, “a gangrenous wound in our collective conscience”; Ukraine; the Sahel; the Horn of Africa; Libya; Democratic Republic of Congo; Yemen; Burma, Haiti and the Balkans.
In all these places there are governments that “ignore and undermine the very foundations of multilateralism with zero accountability”while the Security Council – the highest body of the UN – is gripped by divisions.
Furthermore, divisions caused by hate speech, discrimination, extremism and violations of human rights are deepening around the world, leading to authoritarianism, Islamophobia or anti-Semitism, as well as machismo and gender violence.
Photo UN General Assembly.
Poverty against Artificial Intelligence
He also recalled that developing countries are experiencing the most bitter five years in thirty years, many of them “facing unpayable debt at record levels.”
An especially dramatic fact illustrates this: the poorest countries in the world will owe more money on their external debt at the end of the year than they spend jointly on healthcare, healthcare and infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is evolving at full speed, but “it is concentrating on a few companies, and even fewer countries”, when the truth is that “technology should reduce inequalities” and not reproduce them.
For this reason, he advocated that the international community move quickly and creatively to promote ethical minimums and protection systems that guarantee transparency and that AI “remains under human control.”
The end of fossil fuels?
The Secretary General also returned to one of his favorite topics, the climate crisis, and proclaimed somewhat optimistically that “the era of fossil fuels is on its last legs” because, according to him, “the renewable energy revolution is unstoppable”.
But to do this, he recalled that the world objective is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, which will require cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 compared to 2010, and that 2025 will be the last year of increase in this gas, to go from then on to descent.
This will force each country to present a national climate plan, said Guterres, who ended by reminding that responsibility is individual as well as collective and that he, for his part, would not rest in his fight for peace and a future. better for future generations.
EFE
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