“I’m here to sound the alarm: the world has to wake up,” said Guterres on Tuesday at the beginning of the 76th general debate at the UN General Assembly in New York.
“We stand on the edge of the abyss and we are moving in the wrong direction. Our world has never been in greater danger and never more divided. We are facing the greatest cascade of crisis of our lifetime.”
Guterres, for example, described the uneven distribution of vaccine against the coronavirus as “profanity”. “A majority of the richer world is vaccinated. But more than 90 percent of Africans are still waiting for their first dose. That is a moral indictment of the state of our world,” Guterres said. “We passed the science test. But we failed ethics.”
The world is not standing together enough in the face of crises such as the pandemic and climate change, the UN chief complained. “Instead of humility in the face of these epic challenges, we see presumption. Instead of the path of solidarity, we are in an impasse of destruction.”
Nevertheless, he still had hope, Guterres continued. “The problems we have created are problems we can solve. Humanity has shown that we can achieve great things when we work together.”
After the general debate last year mainly ended with pre-recorded video speeches due to the corona pandemic, many heads of state and government traveled to New York again this year, albeit with significantly smaller delegations. The rest of the representatives from the 193 member states take part online. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is to speak for Germany on Friday.
