Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 7th Feb. UN chief António Guterres on Monday presented his priorities for the year 2023 with a warning to global community that time is running out as the world inches closer to meltdown and countries must change course before it is too late.
He appealed for immediate action to achieve peace, economic rights and development, climate action, respect for diversity, and inclusive societies both today and for generations to come.
SG extended condolences to the families of the victims of the devastating earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, added that the UN is mobilizing to support the response.
He stressed the need for transformation this year, grounded in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“As we look to priorities for this year, a rights-rooted approach is central to achieving our ultimate priority: a safer, more peaceful, more sustainable world,” he said, urging countries to “act decisively before it is too late,” he added.
He referred to the news that the symbolic Doomsday Clock – developed more than 75 years ago by atomic scientists to measure humanity’s proximity to midnight, or self-destruction was 90 seconds away from that hour.
Guterres noted the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the climate emergency, rising nuclear threats, and the undermined global norms and institutions have pushed the world closer to annihilation.
“This is the closest the clock has ever stood to humanity’s darkest hour – closer than even during the height of the Cold War. In truth, the Doomsday Clock is a global alarm clock. We need to wake up – and get to work,” he said.
He stressed that “we need a course correction.”
He said action is possible, however politicians and decision makers lack the strategic vision to see beyond the short term.
Guterres reiterated that this “preference for the present” only focuses on the next poll, power move, or business cycle, making the future “someone else’s problem” a mindset he described as deeply irresponsible, immoral, and self-defeating.
“My message today comes down to this: Don’t focus solely on what may happen to you today and dither. Look at what will happen to all of us tomorrow – and act,” he said.
He said the international community has an obligation to act, as “this is not a time for tinkering” but, rather, “a time for transformation.”
“When I look at human rights in the broadest sense – with a 21st century lens – I see a roadmap out of the dead end,” he said.
He noted that it begins with the right to peace.
“I fear the world is not sleepwalking into a wider war. It is doing so with its eyes wide open. The world needs peace. Peace in line with the United Nations Charter and international law,” he said. “We must work harder for peace everywhere.”
Guterres referred to the situations in the Middle East, where the two-State solution between Palestine and Israel is becoming more distant; in Afghanistan, where women’s rights are being trampled; in the Sahel, where insecurity is rising; in Myanmar, which is facing new cycles of violence and repression, and in Haiti, where gang violence is holding the entire country hostage.
“If every country fulfilled its obligations under the Charter, the right to peace would be guaranteed,” he said.
“It is time to transform our approach to peace by recommitting to the Charter putting human rights and dignity first, with prevention at the heart.”
He called for “a holistic view of the peace continuum” that identifies root causes of conflict and focuses on prevention, mediation, reconciliation, peacebuilding and greater participation of women and young people.
Guterres noted the UN’s proposed New Agenda for Peace, to address both old and new threats and maximizing coalitions for diplomacy, as evidenced by the Black Sea Grain Initiative which is operating after the war in Ukraine.
He added this year marks the 75th anniversary of UN Peacekeeping, which will see increased commitment to reform.
Mr. Guterres called for bringing disarmament and arms control “back to the centre” to both reduce strategic threats from nuclear arms and work for towards their total elimination.
“We are at the highest risk in decades of a nuclear war that could start by accident or design,” he warned.
He urged countries with nuclear arms to renounce these “unconscionable weapons”.
“With poverty and hunger rising, developing countries drowning in debt, and social safety nets frayed, among other signs, he stated.
He called for “radical transformation” of the global financial architecture.
Guterres said it require new commitment and resolve and to address the appalling inequalities and injustices exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the response to the global crisis.
New determination will be needed to ensure developing countries have a greater voice in global financial institutions, and that vulnerable nations, middle-income countries, can have access to debt relief and restructuring, he said.
Multilateral Development Banks must change their business model and leverage their funds to attract more private capital that can be invested to help developing countries achieve the SDGs before the 2030 deadline, he declared.
He cautioned “Without fundamental reforms, the richest countries and individuals will continue to pile up wealth, leaving crumbs for the communities and countries of the Global South,”.
He said 2023 will provide opportunities to “rescue” the SDGs, such as the LDCs next month and another in September devoted to the goals.
Guterres warned that the SDGs “disappearing in the rearview mirror”, countries should come to the summit with clear benchmarks on tackling poverty and exclusion, and on advancing gender equality.
The world must unite now to mobilize resources so that developing economies have the liquidity to invest in education, universal healthcare, pandemic preparedness, decent work and social protection, he said.
On the development, he said it goes together with the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment, “we must end the merciless, relentless, senseless war on nature,” .
He said “2023 is a year of reckoning. It must be a year of game-changing climate action. We need disruption to end the destruction.”
On Climate Change, he reiterated that countries are hurtling past the 1.5-degree limit on global temperature rise therefore focus must be on the urgent priorities of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and achieving climate justice.
He said global emissions must be halved this decade, including through “far more ambitious action” in shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy, especially in the G20 group of industrialized nations.
Businesses, cities, regions and financial institutions that have pledged net-zero carbon emissions, must present their transition plans, with credible and ambitious targets, by this September.
“I have a special message for fossil fuel producers and their enablers scrambling to expand production and raking in monster profits. If you cannot set a credible course for net-zero, with 2025 and 2030 targets covering all your operations, you should not be in business,” said Mr. Guterres.
Climate action is impossible without adequate finance, he said.
Guterres urged richer countries to deliver on promises made at the UN COP27 climate change conference in Egypt last year.
These commitments include establishing a fund to address loss and damage, doubling adaptation funding, and advancing plans on early warning systems globally within the next five years.
Guterres will convene a Climate Ambition Summit in September, ahead of the COP28 conference in the United Arab Emirates in December.
He said that it will be open to all government, business and society leaders, he said, though under one condition: “Show us accelerated action in this decade and renewed ambitious net zero plans – or please don’t show up.”
Mr. Guterres spoke of how respect for diversity and the universality of cultural rights are under attack, as evidenced in part by the rise in antisemitism, anti-Muslim bigotry, the persecution of Christians, racism and white supremacist ideology.
He said ethnic and religious minorities, refugees, migrants, indigenous people and the LGBTQI-plus community, are increasingly targeted for hate, both online and off.
Many people in positions of power are profiting from caricaturing diversity as a threat, sowing division and hatred, while social media platforms use algorithms that amplify toxic ideas and funnel extremist views into the mainstream.
He underlined the UN’s commitment to protecting cultural rights and diversity, including through programmes on the Holocaust and the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, as well as its Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech.
“We will call for action from everyone with influence on the spread of mis- and disinformation on the internet Governments, regulators, policymakers, technology companies, the media, civil society,” he said.
“Stop the hate. Set up strong guardrails. Be accountable for language that causes harm.”
He underscored that half of humanity “held back by the most widespread human rights abuse of our time,” the right to full gender equality.
He emphasized the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan, now “exiles in their own country” due to laws banning them from public life, and their counterparts in Iran, who have taken to the streets to demand fundamental human rights at great personal cost.
SG said gender discrimination is global and things are getting worse.
“We face an intense pushback against the rights of women and girls. Women’s sexual and reproductive rights and legal protections are under threat. At the international level, some governments now oppose even the inclusion of a gender perspective in multilateral negotiations,” he said.
He said gender equality is fundamentally a question of power, and the patriarchy is reasserting itself but the UN is fighting back and standing up for the rights of women and girls everywhere, including in its own ranks.
Guterres pledged to “double down” on support for measures towards greater gender equality, including quotas to close gaps in women’s representation, in elections, corporate board rooms and peace negotiations.
The civil and political rights that are the basis of inclusive societies are also under threat, as democracy is in retreat.
“The pandemic was used as cover for a pandemic of civil and political rights violations,” Mr. Guterres said.
He warned that civic space “is vanishing before our eyes”.
UN chief noted threats such as repressive laws that restrict freedom of expression, new technologies that serve as a guise for controlling freedom of assembly or even movement, and the increase in attacks against the media.
UN is working to advance fundamental freedoms, promote civil society participation, and protect civic space around the world.
“And we are strengthening our support for laws and policies that protect the right to participation and the right to freedom of expression, including a free and independent media,” he added.
He emphasized that the threats undermining rights today will also have an impact on future generations, who are often perceived as barely an afterthought.
Guterres expressed hope that the Summit of the Future, scheduled for next year, will bring these rights to the forefront of the global discussion.
“There is no greater constituency to champion that future than young people and the new UN Youth Office that will be up and running this year is designed to strengthen our work,” he said.
He added that these efforts are also an opportunity to boost global action and build a UN that is fit for a new era.
Comments are closed.