• Inequity, injustice in tackling the pandemic • Global economic system rigged against the poor • Insufficient action on the existential climate threat • Wild west digital frontier that profits from division
UN Secretary General Guterres Discusses His Most Urgent Concerns for 2022
By Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist ——Bio and Archives--January 23, 2022
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres held a news conference on January 21st in which he focused on what he considers to be the gravest dangers facing the world in 2022. The news conference followed his somber speech to the UN General Assembly describing in more detail these dangers and his ideas on how to address them.
“I see a 5-alarm global fire,” Secretary General Guterres told reporters. “Each of the alarms is feeding off the others. They are accelerants to an inferno.”
Four of his alarms involved what the Secretary General described as “social and economic fires.” He listed them as follows:
World leaders must address the problems he identified in an “emergency mode”
“Inequity and injustice in tackling the pandemic.
A global economic system rigged against the poor.
Insufficient action on the existential climate threat.
A wild west digital frontier that profits from division.”
Mr. Guterres’ fifth alarm had to do with the numerous threats to peace and security around the world, which the UN Security Council has been powerless in helping to resolve.
Amidst all the gloom, Mr. Guterres tried to strike a hopeful note. He said that these problems can be solved by humanity since the “problems we face were created by humanity.” He added that the United Nations must be part of the solution: “For an organization built in the aftermath of World War, in the wake of unprecedented genocide, we have an obligation to speak up and act to put out the fire.”
The Secretary General minced no words during his General Assembly speech and his remarks to the press in painting a dire picture of the world today. He said that world leaders must address the problems he identified in an “emergency mode.”
Redistribution of Wealth
If Mr. Guterres intended to ring the alarm bell loud and clear with his stern warnings, he achieved his objective. However, Mr. Guterres undercut his call for global solidarity, cooperation, and mutual respect by pitting the well-off against those he said were the victims of the global economy. He made sweeping generalizations while overlooking some obvious aspects of the problems that he identified.
In discussing what he called the “morally bankrupt” global financial system, for example, the Secretary General complained that it “favors the rich and punishes the poor.” He blamed developed countries and the super-rich for all the problems developing countries and their people are facing. The current distribution of wealth is fundamentally unfair, according to Mr. Guterres, who called for “redistribution.”
Mr. Guterres urged a fundamental review and transformation of global financial governance mechanisms, which, he said, are “dominated by the richest economies in the world.” But Mr. Guterres failed to acknowledge the trillions of dollars that have flowed from rich countries to poor countries over the years, both directly and through the international financial entities that he would like to overhaul.
Moreover, there is the elephant in the room that Secretary General Guterres neglected to mention - the rampant corruption plaguing many developing countries, whose rulers line their pockets at the expense of their people. There is no sensible reason why the United States and other large contributors to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank should give up having the largest say in how these organizations are governed. Otherwise, if recipient countries have the upper hand in rejecting conditions on how they use the money they receive and refusing to be carefully monitored by outside auditors, the contributing countries will more likely find themselves throwing good money after bad down a bottomless money pit.
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“Global Code of Conduct to end the infodemic and the war on science, and promote integrity in public information, including online"
Secretary General Guterres sharply criticized what he characterized as the business models of social media companies. They “profit,” he said, “from algorithms that prioritize addiction, outrage and anxiety at the cost of public safety. We need strong regulatory frameworks to change this business model.’
How restrictive such a regulatory framework should be, Mr. Guterres did not say. But he did have in mind a globalist approach. He proposed to the General Assembly what he called “a Global Code of Conduct to end the infodemic and the war on science, and promote integrity in public information, including online. We look forward to developing this with governments, media outlets and regulators.”
The Secretary General’s proposal begs the question of who ultimately decides what is or is not misinformation. We are seeing the problem of censorship on social media platforms not only by dictatorships, but also by a few powerful social media companies in the United States. Mr. Guterres’ “Global Code of Conduct” among governments, including dictatorships, and social media giants opens the door to more censorship of free speech on social media platforms.
Regarding international peace and security, Secretary General Guterres told the General Assembly that “We face the highest number of violent conflicts since 1945.” He then proceeded to list a number of these conflicts.
When Mr. Guterres mentioned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he urged the parties “to refrain from unilateral steps – including settlement expansion and violence – and to help revive the peace process and pave the way to ending the occupation and achieving a viable two-State solution.”
No Call to end “pay to slay” funding policy of the Palestinian Authority
Notice that he did not call out specifically the terrorist attacks against unarmed Israeli civilians by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Nor did he call for a stop to the “pay to slay” funding policy of the Palestinian Authority.
With respect to Ukraine, Secretary General Guterres told the General Assembly that he would work to “reduce tensions, and urge that all issues be addressed exclusively through diplomacy.” That’s good as far as it goes. But again, Mr. Guterres neglected to mention the elephant in the room – Russia’s massive buildup of troops and military equipment on its side of the Ukrainian border, poised for a Russian invasion of Ukraine at any time.
During his press conference, the Secretary General was given an opportunity to address Russia’s actions specifically. To his credit, Mr. Guterres said that “there should not be any military intervention in this context.” He said that such an invasion would be a violation of international law, while adding that he believed there would be no such invasion. President Joe Biden, on the other hand, predicted during his own news conference that Russia was likely to invade Ukraine. In any case, it would have been helpful if Secretary General Guterres had explicitly urged the drawdown of Russian troops and military equipment from the border as a confidence-building sign of de-escalation.
Secretary General Guterres is beginning his second term in office. He is using his global platform to shine a light on major world problems as he sees them and to urge more cooperation among nations, civil society, and the private sector to solve them. That is a good thing. But he needs to do so in a more nuanced way that avoids simplistic oppressor versus oppressed paradigms.
