On Sept. 22, the United Nations (UN) began the year’s General Assembly, with world leaders in attendance to discuss a myriad of challenges. Despite recent disagreements, most diplomats seem to agree that the world is in crisis.
The General Assembly is the UN’s largest annual diplomatic gathering, bringing together leaders and representatives from its 193 member states to discuss major international challenges and priorities. Throughout the session, world leaders addressed conflicts, economic pressures, climate change, emerging technologies and other issues shaping the global agenda.
In his final address to the general assembly before his term ends, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “a world built on interdependence,” requesting the world’s leaders to keep cooperating and discussing global problems—some of the prominent ones ranged from “climate change and war to inequality and artificial intelligence (AI),” The Associated Press (AP) wrote.
“The fault lines in our world are widening,” Guterres said, as he pressured for that world of interdependence to be “sustained by a dense web of economic, political, social and technological connections.”
Guterres also called out superpowers, saying “that their power isn’t so super,” and that “military power alone cannot secure peace.” He described the situation with Gaza an “onslaught” and the war in Ukraine “a brutal war in blatant violation of the [UN] Charter,” and also said “a 21st century Security Council with no permanent African seats is unjust and indefensible.”
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He concluded his speech with, “There is no peace without development; no development without peace; and no peace and development without human rights.”
U.S. President Donald Trump then took the podium, offering a sharply different assessment of the challenges facing the world.
“While others have promised strength, I have used it to make America the most powerful country in the world,” Trump said, referring to his administration’s supposed accomplishments.
He called for the world to isolate Iran economically as the Middle Eastern country was “allowed to gather strength at the world’s peril,” defending his war by calling Tehran’s “mad dash to a nuclear bomb from behind this ballistic missile shield.”
Trump also stated that the UN has “great potential,” but has encouraged “the far-left agenda of globalist bureaucrats.”
It was also during the meeting that news of Trump’s deal with Denmark over increased military presence in Greenland surfaced.
Guterres’ term as UN secretary-general will end on Dec. 31, fueling speculation over who will succeed him. No clear frontrunner has yet emerged.
“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.
Ongoing conflicts
Ongoing conflicts around the world were among the most prominent issues on the General Assembly’s agenda.
In addition to Guterres, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza and the expansion of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, Al Jazeera reported.
Sheikh Tamim said Gaza was undergoing a “genocide in every sense of the word,” and that “there can be no talk of a just international order as long as Palestine remains a blind spot.”
The UN warned that prospects for a two-state solution are being “systematically erased,” describing Israel’s E1 settlement plan in the West Bank as a potential “deathblow” to Palestinian statehood.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Russia would “not yield an inch” and warned that Ukraine would need greater support as winter approaches. He also called for an end to attacks on energy and civilian infrastructure and for restraint in the Black Sea.
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Climate change
Guterres described the climate crisis as one of the most “profound intergenerational power imbalances of all.”
“One generation consuming the future of the next, one group profiting while those least responsible suffer first and worst,” he said.
South Korea, Japan and parts of Europe experienced unusually high temperatures in August, while severe flooding affected Nepal and parts of China.
On Sept. 16, a prominent scientific report revealed that around 12.5 trillion tons (11.3 trillion metric tons) of ice from glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica have melted since 1979, AP wrote.
“The ice sheets are melting away fast,” Eric Rignot, ice scientist at University of California, Irvine — who co-authored a study in the journal Scientific Data — said. “We are melting the polar regions, sea level is rising worldwide and will exacerbate the vulnerability of coastal regions.”
Erdogan also highlighted the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference (COP31), scheduled for Nov. 9–20 in Antalya, Turkey. He said “climate justice” would be a key focus of the summit, with the goal of turning climate commitments into “concrete steps.”
Artificial intelligence
Turning to artificial intelligence, Guterres called for stronger safeguards and regulation. While acknowledging AI’s potential benefits in areas such as health care and economic development, he warned of the risks posed by “runaway artificial intelligence.”
“Let us resolve that life-and-death decisions must never be surrendered to machines. Killer robots must have no place in our future,” Guterres said.
Days before the meeting, leaders at OpenAI and Anthropic called for a slowdown in AI development, citing growing safety concerns. OpenAI also disclosed six cases of “unexpected or concerning” behavior observed in AI models during training or evaluation, including instances in which models acted without authorization or attempted to evade oversight.
While other leaders called for stronger AI safeguards, Trump rejected international efforts to regulate the technology and promoted the term “super intelligence” in place of “artificial intelligence,” arguing that it better reflected the technology’s capabilities and emphasizing U.S. leadership in the field.
“The United States totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control… artificial intelligence,” Trump said. “Every major new technology brings challenges, and superintelligence is no exception,” he added.
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