Eighty years after its first historic session, UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a powerful and urgent message from London’s Methodist Central Hall. He warned that “powerful forces” are actively working to undermine global cooperation, putting the very future of our shared world at risk.
Guterres highlighted several critical modern threats challenging our unity. The climate crisis continues to intensify, while the rise of unregulated Artificial Intelligence presents new, complex dangers. A destructive global arms race is accelerating, fueled by staggering defense spending that hit an astonishing $2.7 trillion last year. To put that in perspective, Guterres noted this amount is over 200 times the UK’s current aid budget!
He painted a stark picture: “As the planet broke heat records, fossil fuel profits continued to surge. And in cyberspace, algorithms rewarded falsehoods, fuelled hatred, and provided authoritarians with powerful tools of control.” This growing sense of impunity, where powerful nations and leaders adopt a “zero-sum” mentality, means one country’s gain is seen as another’s loss, effectively putting global teamwork “on a deathwatch.”
But Guterres didn’t just highlight the problems; he offered a path forward. He strongly urged all countries to abandon self-centered, unilateral thinking. Instead, he called for a return to multilateralism – working together on a global scale – as the only way to safeguard international law, ensure peace, and preserve our collective future. It’s a clear call for unity in a fractured world.
