By EDITH M. LED­ER­ER, As­so­ci­at­ed Press

NEW YORK (AP) — In per­son and on screen, world lead­ers re­turned to the Unit­ed Na­tions’ fore­most gath­er­ing for the first time in the pan­dem­ic era on Tues­day with a for­mi­da­ble, diplo­ma­cy-packed agen­da and a sharply word­ed warn­ing from the in­ter­na­tion­al or­ga­ni­za­tion’s leader: “We face the great­est cas­cade of crises in our life­time.”

Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res rang the alarm in his an­nu­al state-of-the-world speech at the open­ing of the U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly’s high-lev­el meet­ing for lead­ers of its 193 mem­ber na­tions. More than 100 heads of state and gov­ern­ment kept away by COVID-19 are re­turn­ing to the U.N. in per­son for the first time in two years. But with the pan­dem­ic still rag­ing, about 60 will de­liv­er pre-record­ed state­ments over com­ing days.

“We are on the edge of an abyss — and mov­ing in the wrong di­rec­tion,” Guter­res said. “I’m here to sound the alarm. The world must wake up.”

Guter­res said peo­ple may lose faith not on­ly in their gov­ern­ments and in­sti­tu­tions but in ba­sic val­ues when they see their hu­man rights cur­tailed, cor­rup­tion, the re­al­i­ty of their harsh lives, no fu­ture for their chil­dren — and “when they see bil­lion­aires joyrid­ing to space while mil­lions go hun­gry on Earth.”

Nev­er­the­less, the U.N. chief said he does have hope.

Guter­res urged world lead­ers to bridge six “great di­vides”: pro­mote peace and end con­flicts, re­store trust be­tween the rich­er north and de­vel­op­ing south on tack­ling glob­al warm­ing, re­duce the gap be­tween rich and poor, pro­mote gen­der equal­i­ty, en­sure that the half of hu­man­i­ty that has no ac­cess to the In­ter­net is con­nect­ed by 2030, and tack­le the gen­er­a­tional di­vide by giv­ing young peo­ple “a seat at the ta­ble.”

Oth­er press­ing is­sues on the agen­da of world lead­ers in­clude ris­ing U.S.-Chi­na ten­sions, Afghanistan’s un­set­tled fu­ture un­der its new Tal­iban rulers and on­go­ing con­flicts in Yemen, Syr­ia and Ethiopia’s em­bat­tled Tigray re­gion.

                                                      __________

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al’s speech, de­liv­ered to­day at the open­ing of the U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks to the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021, at United Nations headquarters in New York. (Image courtesy United Nations Facebook)

Mr. Pres­i­dent of the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, Ex­cel­len­cies,

I am here to sound the alarm:  The world must wake up.

We are on the edge of an abyss — and mov­ing in the wrong di­rec­tion. 

Our world has nev­er been more threat­ened. 

Or more di­vid­ed. 

We face the great­est cas­cade of crises in our life­times.  

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has su­per­sized glar­ing in­equal­i­ties.  

The cli­mate cri­sis is pum­melling the plan­et.

Up­heaval from Afghanistan to Ethiopia to Yemen and be­yond has thwart­ed peace. 

A surge of mis­trust and mis­in­for­ma­tion is po­lar­iz­ing peo­ple and par­a­lyz­ing so­ci­eties, and hu­man rights are un­der fire.  

Sci­ence is un­der as­sault.  

And eco­nom­ic life­lines for the most vul­ner­a­ble are com­ing too lit­tle and too late — if they come at all. 

Sol­i­dar­i­ty is miss­ing in ac­tion — just when we need it most.  

Per­haps one im­age tells the tale of our times.  

The pic­ture we have seen from some parts of the world of COVID-19 vac­cines … in the garbage.  

Ex­pired and un­used.   

On the one hand, we see the vac­cines de­vel­oped in record time — a vic­to­ry of sci­ence and hu­man in­ge­nu­ity. 

On the oth­er hand, we see that tri­umph un­done by the tragedy of a lack of po­lit­i­cal will, self­ish­ness and mis­trust.  

A sur­plus in some coun­tries.  Emp­ty shelves in oth­ers. 

A ma­jor­i­ty of the wealth­i­er world vac­ci­nat­ed.  Over 90 per­cent of Africans still wait­ing for their first dose.

This is a moral in­dict­ment of the state of our world.

It is an ob­scen­i­ty.  

We passed the sci­ence test.  

But we are get­ting an F in Ethics. 

Ex­cel­len­cies, 

The cli­mate alarm bells are al­so ring­ing at fever pitch. 

The re­cent re­port of the In­ter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change was a code red for hu­man­i­ty. 

We see the warn­ing signs in every con­ti­nent and re­gion.

Scorch­ing tem­per­a­tures.  Shock­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty loss.  Pol­lut­ed air, wa­ter and nat­ur­al spaces.  

And cli­mate-re­lat­ed dis­as­ters at every turn.

As we saw re­cent­ly, not even this city — the fi­nan­cial cap­i­tal of the world — is im­mune.  

Cli­mate sci­en­tists tell us it is not too late to keep alive the 1.5 de­gree goal of the Paris Cli­mate Agree­ment.  

But the win­dow is rapid­ly clos­ing.

We need a 45 per cent cut in emis­sions by 2030.  Yet a re­cent UN re­port made clear that with present na­tion­al cli­mate com­mit­ments,  emis­sions will go up by 16% by 2030.  

That would con­demn us to a hellscape of tem­per­a­ture ris­es of at least 2.7 de­grees above pre-in­dus­tri­al lev­els – a cat­a­stro­phe.

Mean­while, the OECD just re­port­ed a gap of at least $20 bil­lion in es­sen­tial and promised cli­mate fi­nance to de­vel­op­ing coun­tries.

We are weeks away from the UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence in Glas­gow, but seem­ing­ly light years away from reach­ing our tar­gets. 

We must get se­ri­ous.  And we must act fast.  

Ex­cel­len­cies, 

COVID-19 and the cli­mate cri­sis have ex­posed pro­found fragili­ties as so­ci­eties and as a plan­et.  

Yet in­stead of hu­mil­i­ty in the face of these epic chal­lenges, we see hubris.  

In­stead of the path of sol­i­dar­i­ty, we are on a dead end to de­struc­tion.

At the same time, an­oth­er dis­ease is spread­ing in our world to­day:  a mal­a­dy of mis­trust.

When peo­ple see promis­es of progress de­nied by the re­al­i­ties of their harsh dai­ly lives…

When they see their fun­da­men­tal rights and free­doms cur­tailed…

When they see pet­ty — as well as grand — cor­rup­tion around them…

When they see bil­lion­aires joyrid­ing to space while mil­lions go hun­gry on earth… 

When par­ents see a fu­ture for their chil­dren that looks even bleak­er than the strug­gles of to­day...

And when young peo­ple see no fu­ture at all…

The peo­ple we serve and rep­re­sent may lose faith not on­ly in their gov­ern­ments and in­sti­tu­tions — but in the val­ues that have an­i­mat­ed the work of the Unit­ed Na­tions for over 75 years.

Peace.  Hu­man rights.  Dig­ni­ty for all.  Equal­i­ty.  Jus­tice.  Sol­i­dar­i­ty. 

Like nev­er be­fore, core val­ues are in the crosshairs.  

A break­down in trust is lead­ing to a break­down in val­ues.  

Promis­es, af­ter all, are worth­less if peo­ple do not see re­sults in their dai­ly lives.  

Fail­ure to de­liv­er cre­ates space for some of the dark­est im­puls­es of hu­man­i­ty.

It pro­vides oxy­gen for easy-fix­es, pseu­do-so­lu­tions and con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries.  

It is kin­dling to stoke an­cient griev­ances.  Cul­tur­al su­prema­cy.  Ide­o­log­i­cal dom­i­nance.  Vi­o­lent misog­y­ny.  The tar­get­ing of the most vul­ner­a­ble in­clud­ing refugees and mi­grants.    

Image courtesy United Nations Facebook

Ex­cel­len­cies, 

We face a mo­ment of truth. 

Now is the time to de­liv­er.  

Now is the time to re­store trust.  

Now is the time to in­spire hope.  

And I do have hope.  

The prob­lems we have cre­at­ed are prob­lems we can solve. 

Hu­man­i­ty has shown that we are ca­pa­ble of great things when we work to­geth­er.

That is the rai­son d’être of our Unit­ed Na­tions.  

But let’s be frank.  To­day’s mul­ti­lat­er­al sys­tem is too lim­it­ed in its in­stru­ments and ca­pac­i­ties, in re­la­tion to what is need­ed for ef­fec­tive gov­er­nance of man­ag­ing glob­al pub­lic goods. 

It is too fixed on the short-term.  

We need to strength­en glob­al gov­er­nance.  We need to fo­cus on the fu­ture.  We need to re­new the so­cial con­tract.  We need to en­sure a Unit­ed Na­tions fit for a new era.  

That is why I pre­sent­ed my re­port on Our Com­mon Agen­da in the way I did. 

It pro­vides a 360-de­gree analy­sis of the state of our world, with 90 spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tions that take on the chal­lenges of to­day and strength­en mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism for to­mor­row.  

Our Com­mon Agen­da builds on the UN Char­ter, the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights, the 2030 Agen­da for Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment, and the Paris Cli­mate Agree­ment. 

It is in line with the man­date I was giv­en by the UN75 De­c­la­ra­tion to seek a path­way to a bet­ter world.  

But to reach that land of our promis­es, we must bridge Great Di­vides.  

Ex­cel­len­cies, 

I see 6 Great Di­vides — 6 Grand Canyons — that we must bridge now.   

First, we must bridge the peace di­vide.  

For far too many around the world, peace and sta­bil­i­ty re­main a dis­tant dream.  

In Afghanistan, where we must boost hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance and de­fend hu­man rights, es­pe­cial­ly of women and girls. 

In Ethiopia, where we call on par­ties to im­me­di­ate­ly cease hos­til­i­ties, en­sure hu­man­i­tar­i­an ac­cess and cre­ate the con­di­tions for the start of an Ethiopi­an-led po­lit­i­cal di­a­logue.

In Myan­mar, where we reaf­firm un­wa­ver­ing sup­port to the peo­ple in their pur­suit of democ­ra­cy, peace, hu­man rights and the rule of law.

In the Sa­hel, where we are com­mit­ted to mo­bi­liz­ing in­ter­na­tion­al as­sis­tance for re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty, de­vel­op­ment and gov­er­nance.

In places such as Yemen, Libya and Syr­ia, where we must over­come stale­mates and push for peace.

In Is­rael and Pales­tine, where we urge lead­ers to re­sume a mean­ing­ful di­a­logue,  rec­og­niz­ing the two-State so­lu­tion as the on­ly path­way to a just and com­pre­hen­sive peace.

In Haiti and so many oth­er places left be­hind, where we stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty through every step out of cri­sis.  

Ex­cel­len­cies, 

We are see­ing an ex­plo­sion in seizures of pow­er by force.  

Mil­i­tary coups are back.  

And the lack of uni­ty among the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty does not help.

Geopo­lit­i­cal di­vi­sions are un­der­min­ing in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion and lim­it­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil to take the nec­es­sary de­ci­sions.

A sense of im­puni­ty is tak­ing hold.  

At the same time, it will be im­pos­si­ble to ad­dress dra­mat­ic eco­nom­ic and de­vel­op­ment chal­lenges while the world’s two largest economies are at odds with each oth­er.  

Yet I fear our world is creep­ing to­wards two dif­fer­ent sets of eco­nom­ic, trade, fi­nan­cial, and tech­nol­o­gy rules, two di­ver­gent ap­proach­es in the de­vel­op­ment of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence — and ul­ti­mate­ly the risk of two dif­fer­ent mil­i­tary and geo-po­lit­i­cal strate­gies, and this is a recipe for trou­ble.  It would be far less pre­dictable than the Cold War.  

To re­store trust and in­spire hope, we need co­op­er­a­tion.  We need di­a­logue.  We need un­der­stand­ing.  

We need to in­vest in pre­ven­tion, peace­keep­ing and peace­build­ing.  We need progress on nu­clear dis­ar­ma­ment and in our shared ef­forts to counter ter­ror­ism.

We need ac­tions an­chored in re­spect for hu­man rights.  And we need a new com­pre­hen­sive Agen­da for Peace.

Ex­cel­len­cies, 

Sec­ond, we must bridge the cli­mate di­vide.  This re­quires bridg­ing trust be­tween North and South.

It starts by do­ing all we can now to cre­ate the con­di­tions for suc­cess in Glas­gow.  

We need more am­bi­tion from all coun­tries in three key ar­eas — mit­i­ga­tion, fi­nance and adap­ta­tion.

More am­bi­tion on mit­i­ga­tion — means coun­tries com­mit­ting to car­bon neu­tral­i­ty by mid-cen­tu­ry — and to con­crete 2030 emis­sions re­duc­tions tar­gets that will get us there, backed up with cred­i­ble ac­tions now.

More am­bi­tion on fi­nance — means de­vel­op­ing na­tions fi­nal­ly see­ing the promised US$100 bil­lion dol­lars a year for cli­mate ac­tion, ful­ly mo­bi­liz­ing the re­sources of both in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and the pri­vate sec­tor too.

More am­bi­tion on adap­ta­tion — means de­vel­oped coun­tries liv­ing up to their promise of cred­i­ble sup­port to de­vel­op­ing coun­tries to build re­silience to save lives and liveli­hoods. 

This means 50 per cent of all cli­mate fi­nance pro­vid­ed by de­vel­oped coun­tries and mul­ti­lat­er­al de­vel­op­ment banks should be ded­i­cat­ed to adap­ta­tion. 

The African De­vel­op­ment Bank set the bar in 2019 by al­lo­cat­ing half of its cli­mate fi­nance to adap­ta­tion. 

Some donor coun­tries have fol­lowed their lead.  All must do so. 

My mes­sage to every Mem­ber State is this:  Don’t wait for oth­ers to make the first move.  Do your part. 

Around the world, we see civ­il so­ci­ety — led by young peo­ple — ful­ly mo­bi­lized to tack­le the cli­mate cri­sis.

The pri­vate sec­tor is in­creas­ing­ly step­ping up.  

Gov­ern­ments must al­so sum­mon the full force of their fis­cal pol­i­cy­mak­ing pow­ers to make the shift to green economies.  

By tax­ing car­bon and pol­lu­tion in­stead of peo­ple’s in­come to more eas­i­ly make the switch to sus­tain­able green jobs. 

By end­ing sub­si­dies to fos­sil fu­els and free­ing up re­sources to in­vest back in­to health care, ed­u­ca­tion, re­new­able en­er­gy, sus­tain­able food sys­tems, and so­cial pro­tec­tions for their peo­ple. 

By com­mit­ting to no new coal plants.  If all planned coal pow­er plants be­come op­er­a­tional, we will not on­ly be clear­ly above 1.5 de­grees — we will be well above 2 de­grees.

The Paris tar­gets will go up in smoke.

This is a plan­e­tary emer­gency.  

We need coali­tions of sol­i­dar­i­ty -- be­tween coun­tries that still de­pend heav­i­ly on coal, and coun­tries that have the fi­nan­cial and tech­ni­cal re­sources to sup­port their tran­si­tion.

We have the op­por­tu­ni­ty and the oblig­a­tion to act. 

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks during the 76th Session of the General Assembly at UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021. (Timothy A. ClaryPool Photo via AP)

Ex­cel­len­cies, 

Third, we must bridge the gap be­tween rich and poor, with­in and among coun­tries. 

That starts by end­ing the pan­dem­ic for every­one, every­where.  

We ur­gent­ly need a glob­al vac­ci­na­tion plan to at least dou­ble vac­cine pro­duc­tion and en­sure that vac­cines reach sev­en­ty per­cent of the world’s pop­u­la­tion in the first half of 2022.

This plan could be im­ple­ment­ed by an emer­gency Task Force made up of present and po­ten­tial vac­cine pro­duc­ers, the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion, ACT-Ac­cel­er­a­tor part­ners, and in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, work­ing with phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies. 

We have no time to lose. 

A lop­sided re­cov­ery is deep­en­ing in­equal­i­ties.  

Rich­er coun­tries could reach pre-pan­dem­ic growth rates by the end of this year while the im­pacts may last for years in low-in­come coun­tries. 

Is it any won­der?

Ad­vanced economies are in­vest­ing near­ly 28 per cent of their Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct in­to eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery. 

For mid­dle-in­come coun­tries, that num­ber falls to 6.5 per cent. 

And it plum­mets to 1.8 per cent for the least de­vel­oped coun­tries — a tiny per­cent­age of a much small­er amount. 

In Sub-Sa­ha­ran Africa, the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund projects that cu­mu­la­tive eco­nom­ic growth per capi­ta over the next five years will be 75 per­cent less than the rest of the world. 

Many coun­tries need an ur­gent in­jec­tion of liq­uid­i­ty.  

I wel­come the is­suance of US $650 bil­lion in Spe­cial Draw­ing Rights by the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund. 

But these SDRs are large­ly go­ing to the coun­tries that need them least.  

Ad­vanced economies should re­al­lo­cate their sur­plus SDRs to coun­tries in need.  

SDRs are not a sil­ver bul­let.  

But they pro­vide space for sus­tain­able re­cov­ery and growth.

I re­new al­so my call for a re­formed, and more eq­ui­table in­ter­na­tion­al debt ar­chi­tec­ture.  

The Debt Ser­vice Sus­pen­sion Ini­tia­tive must be ex­tend­ed to 2022 and should be avail­able to all high­ly in­debt­ed vul­ner­a­ble and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries that re­quest it.  

This would be sol­i­dar­i­ty in ac­tion. 

Coun­tries shouldn’t have to choose be­tween ser­vic­ing debt and serv­ing peo­ple. 

With ef­fec­tive in­ter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty, it would be pos­si­ble at the na­tion­al lev­el to forge a new so­cial con­tract that in­cludes uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age and in­come pro­tec­tion, hous­ing and de­cent work, qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion for all, and an end to dis­crim­i­na­tion and vi­o­lence against women and girls.  

I call on coun­tries to re­form their tax sys­tems and fi­nal­ly end tax eva­sion, mon­ey laun­der­ing and il­lic­it fi­nan­cial flows. 

And as we look ahead, we need a bet­ter sys­tem of pre­ven­tion and pre­pared­ness for all ma­jor glob­al risks. We must sup­port the rec­om­men­da­tions of the In­de­pen­dent Pan­el for Pan­dem­ic Pre­pared­ness and Re­sponse.  

I have put for­ward a num­ber of oth­er pro­pos­als in Our Com­mon Agen­da — in­clud­ing an emer­gency plat­form and a Fu­tures Lab.

Ex­cel­len­cies, 

With re­al en­gage­ment, we can live up to the promise of a bet­ter, more peace­ful world.

That is the dri­ving force of our Com­mon Agen­da.  

The best way to ad­vance the in­ter­ests of one’s own cit­i­zens is by ad­vanc­ing the in­ter­ests of our com­mon fu­ture.  

In­ter­de­pen­dence is the log­ic of the 21st cen­tu­ry. 

And it is the lodestar of the Unit­ed Na­tions.  

This is our time.  

A mo­ment for trans­for­ma­tion.  

An era to re-ig­nite mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism. 

An age of pos­si­bil­i­ties.  

Let us re­store trust.  Let us in­spire hope.  

And let us start right now.  

Thank you.