UN chief says power has polarized the world and urges leaders to cooperate

In a no-non­sense farewell speech, U.N. Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res urged glob­al lead­ers Tues­day to re­spond to the defin­ing chal­lenge to­day: Will the world con­tin­ue on its path to frag­men­ta­tion or co­op­er­ate to tack­le the ex­is­ten­tial threats from cli­mate cri­sis, run­away ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and in­ten­si­fy­ing in­equal­i­ties?

At the heart of these crises is pow­er, Guter­res told the an­nu­al high-lev­el gath­er­ing at the U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, point­ing to the “ir­re­versible” move to­ward a mul­ti­po­lar world, the “ex­tra­or­di­nary trans­fer of pow­er” from gov­ern­ments to a hand­ful of pri­vate cor­po­ra­tions and in­di­vid­u­als, and the in­creas­ing han­dover of pow­er from hu­mans to ma­chines with ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence.

Guter­res urged lead­ers to avoid what he called “the great frac­ture – the di­vi­sion of the world in­to two ri­val blocs with sep­a­rate eco­nom­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems.”

He re­buked might-makes-right think­ing, telling su­per­pow­ers to rec­og­nize “that their pow­er isn’t so su­per” — that “mil­i­tary pow­er alone can­not se­cu­ri­ty peace” and that “no pow­er can solve to­day’s chal­lenges along.”

The fu­ture will be shaped by how the world ad­dress­es “four great tests of pow­er” – pow­er over war and peace, pow­er fu­el­ing cli­mate chaos, pow­er un­leashed by ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and “pow­er that con­cen­trates wealth and dri­ves in­equal­i­ty,” he said

War and peace

Peace and se­cu­ri­ty is “the first great pow­er test in the 21st cen­tu­ry,” the U.N. chief said, ap­peal­ing to lead­ers to max­i­mize their week­long meet­ing to de­mand an end to fight­ing in the Mid­dle East, Ukraine, Su­dan, Myan­mar and else­where – and de­mand a re­turn to di­a­logue.

Cli­mate cri­sis

The cli­mate cri­sis, Guter­res said, is in many ways “the most pro­found in­ter­gen­er­a­tional pow­er im­bal­ance of all – one gen­er­a­tion con­sum­ing the fu­ture of the next.”

The world faces a near cer­tain breach of the 1.5 de­gree Cel­sius (2.7 de­grees Fahren­heit) safe­ty thresh­old set 11 years ago to pre­vent the worst of glob­al warm­ing, he said, and “the dan­gers are re­al, but so is the hope.” He point­ed to the past decade which has fu­eled “one of the most promis­ing shifts in pow­er of our time” to clean en­er­gy.

Ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence

As for ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, “the dan­ger is not tech­nol­o­gy. The dan­ger is tech­nol­o­gy with­out ac­count­abil­i­ty,” he said, and its de­vel­op­ers are now sound­ing the alarm.

Guter­res urged AI ri­vals to come to­geth­er – as the Cold War ri­vals did af­ter World War II – “to man­age shared ex­is­ten­tial risks.”

“Let us re­solve that life-and-death de­ci­sions must nev­er be sur­ren­dered to ma­chines,” he said. “Killer ro­bots must have no place in our fu­ture.”

In­equal­i­ty

Stress­ing that in­equal­i­ty is a pow­er prob­lem, the U.N. chief said, “Nev­er has hu­man­i­ty pos­sessed so much wealth, knowl­edge and tech­no­log­i­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ty. Yet for bil­lions, progress re­mains out of reach.”

He de­cried that for these bil­lions, food, clean wa­ter, ed­u­ca­tion, de­cent work, health care and dig­ni­ty re­main out of reach – and lament­ed that most U.N. goals to end pover­ty and pro­mote de­vel­op­ment won’t be met by 2030.

Fu­ture lead­er­ship of UN un­clear

Guter­res’ sec­ond five-year term will end on Dec. 31, and the fu­ture lead­er­ship of the Unit­ed Na­tions is un­clear: Af­ter three straw polls in the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil of the eight con­tenders, no clear suc­ces­sor to Guter­res has emerged.

Guter­res said the back­bone “for the ef­fec­tive, le­git­i­mate and re­spon­si­ble ex­er­cise of pow­er in the 21st cen­tu­ry” ex­ists in the Unit­ed Na­tions Char­ter which is based on “the pri­ma­cy of in­ter­na­tion­al law. Up­hold­ing hu­man dig­ni­ty and the pur­suit of jus­tice in all its di­men­sions.”

But he stressed the crit­i­cal need to re­form the 81-year-old Unit­ed Na­tions, es­tab­lished by the vic­to­ri­ous pow­ers in World War II to pro­tect suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions from the scourge of war to re­flect the dra­mat­i­cal­ly changed 21st cen­tu­ry world.

Guter­res urged pres­i­dents, prime min­is­ters and min­is­ters gath­ered in the as­sem­bly cham­ber to com­mit to the wide-rang­ing re­form pack­age the U.N.’s 193 mem­ber na­tions have adopt­ed and strength­en the world body’s de­ter­mi­na­tion “to build a fu­ture that works for every­one.”

His voice ris­ing with emo­tion, Guter­res closed vow­ing to “nev­er, ever give up” on the val­ues for which the U.N. stands – the rule of law, the sov­er­eign­ty of na­tions, and hu­man rights to name a few.

“Wher­ev­er I will be, what­ev­er I will be do­ing, I will keep cham­pi­oning the con­vic­tion that peace is pos­si­ble,” he said, be­fore leav­ing the ros­trum amid a sus­tained stand­ing ova­tion. He put his hand on his heart.

UNIT­ED NA­TIONS (AP)