Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, has promised to make 2023 “a year for peace” and “a year for action,” highlighting the necessity of finding workable solutions to a number of urgent issues that all parts of the world are currently facing.
At the UN headquarters’ year-end press conference, Guterres made the commitment.
The UN “owes it to the people to find solutions, to fight back, and to act,” he said.
Building on his general call to action, Guterres declared that he would host the Climate Ambition Summit in September 2023 and urged all heads of state and government to “step up” in response.
It would be “a no-nonsense summit,” he claimed. Without exceptions No giving in. Backsliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters, or repackaging of announcements from prior years will not be tolerated.
It would take place in conjunction with a General Assembly opening-week summit that is already scheduled, with the intention of accelerating progress toward the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Although there may be “plenty of reasons for despair,” leaving the poorest countries on “debt row” in the midst of the Ukraine War and related cost-of-living crisis was not an option.
“This is not a time to sit on the sidelines, it is a time for resolve, determination, and – yes – even hope.
“Because despite the limitations and long odds, we are working to push back against despair, to fight back against disillusionment, and to find real solutions.
“Not perfect solutions—not even always pretty solutions—but practical solutions that are making a meaningful difference to people’s lives.
“Solutions that must put us on a pathway to a better and more peaceful future.”
Guterres highlighted the deal just hours earlier, to halt the destruction of ecosystems worldwide, at the UN’s Biodiversity Conference, COP15.
“We are finally starting to form a peace pact, with nature”, he said, urging all countries to deliver on their promises.
He noted the cease-fire in northern Ethiopia as another “reason for hope” and a result of “a rebirth of diplomacy” as evidence that progress had been made toward putting an end to the conflict in some of the world’s war zones.
Progress has been made in Yemen, where a truce has “delivered real dividends for the people,” as well as in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where armed groups have stepped up their attacks on government forces and drew in UN peacekeeping forces.
Despite the biodiversity agreement and pledges made at COP27 in Egypt, it is obvious that the fight to keep global emissions to just a 1.5-degree rise above pre-industrial levels is still “moving in the wrong direction,” and the emissions gap is widening.
“The 1.5-degree goal is gasping for breath. National climate plans are falling woefully short. And yet, we are not retreating. We are fighting back”, added the UN chief.
He stated that the international community was now “fighting back to restore trust between North and South” by reaching an agreement at COP27 on the long-stalled issue of Loss and Damage.
Another positive step was taken in 2022 with the launch of an action plan to cover every person in the world with early warning systems, within the next five years.
“Going forward, I will keep pushing for a Climate Solidarity Pact, in which all big emitters make an extra effort to reduce emissions this decade in line with the 1.5-degree goal and ensure support for those who need it.
Without it, he warned, “the 1.5-degree goal will soon disappear. I have pulled no punches on the imperative for all of us to confront this existential threat. And I will not relent.”