Essay by Eric Worrall
The question – why such a bedraggled, wide ranging speech?
19 September 2022
Secretary-General’s remarks at SDG Moment event
Excellencies, honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen.
Let me begin by expressing my deep sadness on the recent loss of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, whose funeral took place today.
The world bids farewell to an extraordinary leader and her lifetime of service.
It is service and action for humanity that brings us together today.
Excellencies,
We meet at a moment of great peril for our world.
Conflicts and climate catastrophe.
Mistrust and division.
Poverty, inequality and discrimination.
Rising costs of food and energy.
Unemployment and declining incomes.
Massive displacement and dislocation.
The ongoing effects of a global pandemic.
And a lack of access to finance for developing countries to recover — a crisis not seen in a generation.
Each peril is pushing the Sustainable Development Goals further out of reach.
And in the face of such perils, it is tempting to put our long-term development priorities to one side.
To leave them for a sunny day.
But development cannot wait.
The education of our children cannot wait.
Dignified jobs cannot wait.
Full equality for women and girls cannot wait.
Comprehensive health care, meaningful climate action, biodiversity protection — these cannot be left for tomorrow.
Across all of these areas, young people — and future generations — are demanding action.
We cannot let them down.
This is a definitive moment.
All of you here today — and those tuning in from around the world — give me immense hope that we can put our hands on the wheel of progress and steer a new course.
That we can rescue the Sustainable Development Goals and get back on track to building the better world that leaves no one behind.
The world has a long “to do” list.
We need finance and investment from the public and private sectors.
We need a reformed financial architecture that benefits developing countries, providing critical financing and debt relief. This is the only sustainable pathway to address the obscene inequalities that exist in every country, while ensuring that the world doesn’t slide into a recession.
Governments need to invest like never before in the health, education and wellbeing of all people — including refugees and migrants.
We need expanded universal social protection to protect people against economic shocks, while boosting job-creation — especially in the digital, care and green economies.
The Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions is one critical opportunity to reach these goals.
We must all do more to lift up women and girls in every walk of life.
And we need to save our planet — which is quite literally on fire.
This means addressing the triple planetary crisis of climate breakdown, biodiversity loss and pollution.
It means supporting the Global Biodiversity Framework to transform how we use and preserve our natural gifts for the future.
And it means moving away from our suicidal dependence on fossil fuels and jump-starting the renewable energy transition in every country — and supporting developing countries as they make this shift and adapt to the changes around them.
Above all, there can be no sustainable future without peace.
By embracing peace and tolerance — and more importantly, by living these values every day — we can move one step closer to the sustainable, equal and just world that every person deserves.
My friends,
The task before us is immense.
And young people are demanding action — not only for themselves, but for the generations of the future.
The perils we face are no match for a world united.
Let’s get to work.
Let’s get our world back on track.
Thank you.
Source: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2022-09-19/secretary-generals-remarks-sdg-moment-event-bilingual-delivered-follows-scroll-further-down-for-all-english-version
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H.L. Mencken
Why such a bedraggled, wide ranging speech?
My guess is market research.
The climate scam is losing traction. The collapsed credibility of the over-hyped Covid pandemic, much championed by the United Nations, has heightened distrust of authority, just when the UN hoped they would finally be in a position to tighten their grip.
In my opinion there is also an important personal aspect to this speech. UN Secretary General António Guterres is well into his final term of office. If he cannot find a way to make us all care in the next few years, he won’t have a legacy. He will be forgotten, or at best remembered as a placeholder, a faceless footnote, yet another nobody leader of an institution whose leaders are rarely remembered.
All those dreams of a greater role for the United Nations, and personal glory for Guterres, are slipping away – so Guterres is desperately flailing about, trying to find an issue, any issue, which will make us all care again, make us all beg for strong global leadership to deliver us to the illusion of safety.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – Benjamin Franklin
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“We need finance and investment from the public and private sectors. “
I thought all finance and investment comes from the private sector. The public sector gets it’s income from general taxation and the only tax of value is taxation of the private sector as taxation of the public sector is taxing money that has come out of taxation.
The private sector invests in the hope of making money.
The public sector invests in the hope of making votes.
his climate policies have helped put europe and england on the verge of economic collapse . waist deep in the big muddy and the big fool says to push on .
the only thing he should be speaking out about now is the war in ukraine and he hasn’t said a damn thing , has he ?
Exactly!
why such a bedraggled, wide ranging speech?
Well I reckon Nigel Farage knows why as winter approaches-
Europe’s energy crisis has ‘just been getting worse’ | Watch (msn.com)
Climate bafflegab and issue conflation are Guterres’ forte. Notice that he mentions “sustainable development”, which then becomes simply “development”. Another of his many tricks of the trade.
Any time you see a doomsayer with an open palm, you know what they are about.
hypocrites
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/european-investment-bank-head-rejects-natgas-funding-african-countries
The diplomats’ Pope has no clothes.
The last term is the real objective:
Send Money
Not much chance of that and the taxeaters are getting panicky-
German government agrees nationalization deal for energy giant Uniper (cnbc.com)
The UN is against bad things and for good things; give money.
How do you say “codswallop” in Spanish?
I’ll see your General Secretary and raise you an ANC.
South Africa in electricity crisis, nationwide blackouts – ABC News (go.com)
Pay no attention to that land war in Europe and the use of nukes. We have travel and admin costs and benefits to cover.
“Trust is crumbling, inequalities are exploding, our planet is burning,” Guterres said.”
If you’re going to lie, make it a BIG lie.
He’d be a lot better off if he went: “Ready about” — “Helm’s a’lee” and went to the opposite tack.
Disband the UN. Then prosecute the leadership for crimes against humanity.
Head of a cesspool of corruption & inefficiency. He should be spending more time reducing the number of children his “peace keeping” forces rape.
US Senator William ‘Wild Bill’ Langer opposed the United States joining the United Nations. One of two senators to do so.
A local newspaper on the editorial page had a ‘Fifty Years Ago Today’ entry each week.
It quoted Bill Langer’s sole reason for not voting ‘yes’: “All it will do is create perpetual war,” were the words used by Senator Langer.
He was a Republican, attended Columbia University School of Law and graduated first in his class.
He was also affiliated with the Non-Partisan League, a political movement that recognized socialist entities in the State of North Dakota. Non-partisan was the term used by actual Socialists who viewed those sympathetic to socialism but were not in the fold. In the beginning it was the Republican-NPL, later to become the Democratic-NPL.
A socialist was elected sheriff in Williams County, at the west end of the state, in the 1930’s.
Mother Bloor, Ella Reeve Bloor, married a communist that farmed in the area of my hometown.
During the Great Depression, 35 cities in America elected socialist mayors.
‘The Goat that Can’t be Got’ was the motto of the NPL, later to become the Progressive Party in the MIdwest and in Alberta, Canada. Americans settled in Alberta, for the most part.
Suffice it to say that the UN is one huge mistake and should be dismantled.
The proof is in the pudding. It is always war now, everywhere, all the time.
Permanent War, Homo the Sap, a book by Lorne T. Morgan, the human race is the victim.
You can buy a copy, it will set you back 1500 dollars. Plus shipping, plus tax.
‘Wild Bill’ Langer was spot on.
The National Post (Toronto newspaper considered slightly right of centre) has article by Terence Corcoran today (sept 23) “Tear down this Tower”, in response to Guterres speech, Love his point that if things are so dire, the UN must be massive failure. Accompanied by excerpt from Jason Johnston’s critique of the IPCC. Newspaper hard to get in USA, but may be available on lone
G’Day Janice,
“… may be available on line.”
It is. I just ‘bookmarked’ it.