UN chief urges leaders to fix global system for future

Ahead of next week's annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York, the UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres will host a summit to overhaul international institutions and plan for future challenges.

The two-day Summit of the Future is being billed as a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to forge a new path for the benefit of all".

But some envoys have found it hard to get excited about.

"How can you talk about the future when the present is so dark?" a UN Security Council diplomat remarked to RTÉ News.

But it’s precisely the darkness of the present, according to UN officials, that should drive governments to do something about a broken multilateral system, that was built for a different era and no longer fit for purpose in the modern age.

"We see out-of-control geopolitical divisions and runaway conflicts - not least in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and beyond," Mr Guterres said ahead of the gathering.

"Runaway climate change, runaway inequalities and debt, runaway development of new technologies like artificial intelligence - without guidance or guardrails, and our institutions simply can't keep up," he said.

All of this has diminished trust in the UN, Michèle Griffin, the Irish director of the summit in the Secretary General’s office said.

"People can see all our shortcomings," she said, "whether that’s not managing conflict effectively, not delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals, not keeping pace with emerging challenges or not making sure that opportunities are equally available to all."

Is this summit, then, an acknowledgement that the United Nations has failed?

"No, to the contrary," Ms Griffin said.

"This is what the UN does," she said, "we are an arena for governments to come and collaborate to solve big shared problems".

We could spend time lamenting the ways in which the UN is imperfect or outdated, she said.

"Or we can roll up our sleeves and do something about it, and that's exactly what this summit is supposed to do," she said.

There are three main agreements on the table at the summit.

The first is the Pact for the Future, which tackles reform of the UN.

There’s a push for the Security Council to become more representative - adding seats for Asian, African and Latin American countries - and for the power of the veto held by the five permanent members to be reduced.

Russia has deployed its veto to block action on Ukraine. The United States has used its veto to shield its ally Israel, over Gaza.

Smaller countries are sick and tired of the stalemate and want to see change. Although unsurprisingly, there’s little appetite for giving up the veto among the powerful nations - China, Russia, UK, France and USA - who wield one.

The pact also aims to overhaul the international financial architecture of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which Mr Guterres blames for saddling the developing world with debt.

A call to revamp UN Peacekeeping is in there too, as is a promise to prevent war in outer space. There are some references to nuclear disarmament, although they remain "hotly contested," according to diplomats.

The second agreement is a Global Digital Compact which aims to establish international norms and guardrails for emerging technologies like artificial intelligence.

The third is a Declaration on Future Generations, which is largely about involving young people in multilateral decision-making.

The texts are heavy on previously agreed commitments on things like climate change and the sustainable development goals. That’s led to criticism that the Summit of the Future is little more than a re-hash of old ideas.

However UN officials say governments have failed to live up to past promises and these new agreements are an attempt to knock heads together.

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Meanwhile, they admit getting 193 countries to agree on anything these days is a tall order.

There’s certainly a question mark over whether the agreements will get the consensus they need from all member states. Some countries - like Russia and Pakistan - have already indicated they may not sign.

The heated debate that dogged the text negotiations eventually forced a dilution of the revised drafts.

Some of the language on gender equality, reproductive rights, human rights and climate change, for example, was stripped back to appease countries wary that global commitments on these issues are contrary to their national interests.

There’s also concern among some diplomats that lobbying from the fossil fuel industry has triggered backsliding on climate action.

"Some diplomats have called for the Secretary General to pull the plug at the last minute," said Maya Ungar, UN analyst at the Crisis Group, a New York-based think tank.

"I don’t think we would see that happening," she said, but there is real concern that there’s regression.

"Instead of even trying to move forward on some of these new, emerging challenges, you are just trying to hold the baseline," she said.

Asked if all the watering down could end up producing a damp squib, a spokesperson for Mr Guterres said intense negotiations would go on until the last minute.

"We continue to be determined to get the best possible text and to help member states adopt the best possible text," spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told RTÉ News.

But whatever world leaders put their name to in New York next week, nothing will happen without sustained public pressure, Ms Griffin said.

"We've built into the summit outcome some moments in the future where we will check back in on some of the things that we're agreeing this September, and make sure that we ask ourselves whether we've actually implemented these agreements," she said.

There’s no doubt that the Summit of the Future is an ambitious attempt by the Mr Guterres to drag the UN - kicking and screaming it seems - into the 21st century.

"We can’t shape a future fit for our grandchildren with a system built by our grandparents," he has often said.

But even as the curtain goes up on Mr Guterres’ big push to save international cooperation, diplomats are likely to be arguing in basement consultation rooms at UN headquarters.

In the words of one senior European envoy, "it could be a messy few days".