Ukraine: UN chief warns of ‘wider war’

As the “risks of escalation” in Ukraine grow, the world is heading “with eyes wide open” towards “a wider war”, the UN secretary-general warned today in a particularly bleak speech outlining his priorities for 2023.

War in Ukraine, climate crisis, extreme poverty… “We have entered 2023 as a convergence of challenges that we have never seen before in our lifetime is looming on our horizon,” Antonio Guterres said before the UN General Assembly.

According to the scientists who manage the “apocalypse clock”, humanity has never been so close to its end, currently 90 seconds before midnight, Guterres recalled, taking it as a wake-up call. “We have to wake up and get to work,” he insisted, listing a list of urgent issues for 2023. At the top of that list is the war in Ukraine.

“The prospects for peace keep diminishing. The risks of further escalation and carnage keep growing.”

“I’m afraid the world is moving towards a wider war not sleepwalking, but actually doing so with its eyes wide open,” he said, before expressing concern about other threats to peace, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Afghanistan to Myanmar, the Sahel, Haiti.

“If all countries fulfilled their obligations under the (UN) Charter, the right to peace would be guaranteed,” he insisted, placing respect for human rights at the heart of those values.

More generally, Antonio Guterres denounced the absence of “strategic vision” and the “tendency” of those making political and economic decisions for the short term. “The next election. The next political maneuver to cling to power,” “the prices of a stock in the stock market the next day”: “This short-term thinking is not only deeply irresponsible, it is immoral.”

“Crumbs” for the poor

Emphasizing instead the need to think about future generations, he repeated his call for a “radical transformation” of the global financial architecture.

There is something fundamentally wrong with our economic and financial system,” he insisted, pointing to its responsibility for increasing poverty and hunger, the gap between rich and poor, or the debt burden of developing countries.

“Without fundamental reforms, the richest countries and the richest people will continue to accumulate wealth, leaving only crumbs for the communities and countries of the South.”

A concern echoed by representatives of developing countries, from Africa to small island states.

“The poorest cannot continue to pay the high price for the benefit of the richest,” insisted Cuban ambassador Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, on behalf of the G77+China group, which numbers 134 developing countries.

According to the UN Development Programme, with the pandemic, the world has already gone back five years in terms of social development (health, education, standard of living).

And “the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are disappearing from the mirror,” Guterres underlined, referring to the 17 goals set in 2015 to be achieved by 2030 to eradicate poverty, food security for all, access to clean and economic affordable energy.

“We have opportunities to save them,” said the secretary-general, who is organizing a summit in New York in September on the issue.

The fight against global warming as well as climate goals will be at the center of another summit also in September to which he has invited world leaders. “Show us accelerated action for this decade and ambitious new plans for carbon neutrality or please don’t come,” he said.

He also once again blasted fossil fuel companies: “If you can’t plan a credible path to zero carbon, with targets for 2025 and 2030 that cover all of your operations, then you won’t you should be in this field.”

RES-EMP

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