Involve the future in ‘UN Summit of the Future’

For last 32 years after Rio and 52 years after Stockholm, UN has been unable to make the world a sustainable place to live (Photo: un.org)

‘A once-in-a-generation opportunity’ is how the United Nations describes the ‘Summit of the Future’ that began on Sunday at the UN Head Quarters in New York. 

The Summit is described as ‘a high-level event, bringing world leaders together to forge a new international consensus on how we deliver a better present and safeguard the future.  Though this sounds like copy-cat words echoed at all the Summits organised by the UN, the ‘Summit of the Future’ may prove to be different as it is indeed a much-needed meeting coming at a time when global efforts on sustainable development have been totally sidelined and disabled by two major armed conflicts that have gripped the attention of the world. But even more dangerous and deadlier is the war on nature that has continued unstopped even as the world leaders find newer distractions to keep themselves busy with.

All the three conflicts cited above and many other armed battles that go on around the world have exacerbated the damage to biodiversity and climate, while adding to pollution, in air, water and soil. 

On the military conflicts, the world is split vertically and as if these divisions were not enough, a tug of war or almost a trade war has been going on between the United States and China and a proxy trade war is brewing between China and the European Union.

Curiously , the trade war is related to ‘green products’  including solar panels and EVs manufactured in China and sold in world over, including the US and Europe. The green solutions are meant to save the planet from climate crisis and not to blow away the enemy with weapons and drones! 

The 78th UN General Assembly (UNGA) held last year dealt with the longish and all-encompassing and verbose theme, ‘Rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity: Accelerating action on the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and sustainability for all’.  

The UNGA also noted dismally that the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was in peril as it recognised that progress towards achieving most of the SDGs is either too slow or has regressed below the 2015 baseline. Millions of people have fallen into poverty, hunger and malnutrition are becoming more prevalent, humanitarian-needs are rising, the impacts of climate change are becoming more pronounced leading to not only our collective failure to reach the climate goals but shaking the world with massive cross boundary migration and terrorism. 

That has aggravated inequality, weakened international solidarity and a shortfall of trust among nations. It is a scenario that coveys not only failure of the leaders of the 196 members nations of the UN but also the stark malfunction of the current framework of UN which was created after World War II with the aim to achieve the peace in the world. Not surprisingly, the UNGA last year closed with a limpid conclusion, kicking the ball ahead into the future. “We look forward to the Summit of the Future in 2024 as an important opportunity to, inter alia, accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs,” said the UN.

Moment for miracles in 2024

The stated overarching purpose of the Summit in 2024 is to reaffirm the UN Charter (Photo: un.org)

For the first time in UN history, the UN Summit has been preceded by ‘action days’, held on September 20-21, preceding the declaration that normally comes after the meeting of the leaders.

The stated overarching purpose of the Summit in 2024 is to reaffirm the UN Charter, reinvigorate multilateralism and restore the trust amidst the new challenges and agree on solutions. According to the UN, the objective  of the Summit is two dimensional. First is to accelerate efforts to meet existing international commitments, and second take concrete steps to respond to emerging challenges and opportunities. The world leaders are expected to adopt the ‘Pact for the Future’, including a ‘Global Digital Compact’ and a ‘Declaration on Future Generations’ as annexes. Summit is meant to produce a new international consensus on how we deliver a better present and safeguard the future. 

But all that is on the paper. When it comes to converting those commitments on paper into actions on the ground, the effectiveness of United Nations has long been doubted and with good reason.

But it is also true that the outcomes of the UN are just a sum total of what nations of the world decide and agree on and how faithfully and rapidly they implement them. The failures of the UN are the failures of the nations and their leaders as the agreements and goals are missed due to unfulfillment of promises given by the countries. The Paris Climate Agreement is ‘burning and hot’ example. Right from Climate Convention of 1992 and Kyoto Protocol of 1997 to the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, for over 32 years the world has been unable to bend the rising curve of carbon-dioxide emissions and other Green House Gases (GHGs) that have caused havoc on the planet and resulted in climate chaos.

But it is not a story of only failures. There has been, contrary to popular belief, at least one notable and successful exception in the UN history. Cited often, this is a global agreement that was not only concluded fairly rapidly, but which has been implemented flawlessly and within the time frames committed to by various parties.

The Ozone layer acts as shield to protect the ecosystem on the earth from Sun’s UV rays (Photo: un.org)

That exception is the multilateral environmental agreement called Montreal Protocol on the substances that deplete the stratospheric ozone layer. The Ozone layer acts as shield to protect the ecosystem on the earth from Sun’s UV rays. Global community succeeded banning and halting the production of the man-made chemicals that deplete the ozone layer. Almost 40 years after the agreement was signed, the ozone layer is now on the way to recovery and global catastrophe has been avoided. Sadly, the nations are unable to repeat that success. 

Despite the limited successes and repeated failures, convening power of UN is undeniable. That power of UN was able to produce positive results during the Covid-19pandemic. The same power was also able to at least partially prevent loss of lives in many regions through World Food Programme and UN Peacekeeping Forces. 

Convening global leaders on single platform in face of their different political ideologies and often their dictatorial orientations proves that UN is the only game in the town. The timing for the Summit of the Future is also undeniably opportune. It is the moment to mend the ways, shift the focus, refill the eroded trust and demonstrate that international cooperation can effectively achieve agreed goals and tackle emerging threats and opportunities. 

Effective global cooperation is increasingly critical to our survival but difficult to achieve in an atmosphere of mistrust, particularly due to UN’s inability to transform outdated structures like Security Council that no longer reflect today’s political and economic realities. Will the Summit of the Future succeed in bringing the world leaders together when they are hopelessly divided?  And is there a better way to shape our world than just organising summits?

The past offers some insight. There is strong evidence that poverty, hunger, conflicts, wars, inequality and terrorism all have roots in the way the humanity continues to be in conflict, with itself and with nature. It is strongly believed that though UN has prevented the World War III among the nations, it is not been able to prevent the World War III being waged by humanity on nature. 

In 1972 the link between poverty and environmental damage was first pointed out in Stockholm Summit on the Human Environment by India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Twenty years later in 1992, UN held Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil on Environment and Development saw Rio Declaration, Agenda 21 Forest Principles, Convention on Bio-diversity, Convention on Climate Change and Convention to Combat Desertification. It also saw the birth of CSD-Commission on Sustainable Development.

By 2050, the deadline for achieving ‘NetZero’ in terms of carbon emissions (Photo: un.org)

For last 32 years after Rio and 52 years after Stockholm, UN has been unable to make the world a sustainable place to live. The solidarity is liquidated. Trust strangulated. Commitments that the rich and powerful countries sign on to in various multilateral agreements, mainly on finances and technology transfer, are not kept. The conferences and summits have proliferated, reports and reviews have mushroomed, but the crisis continues and even intensifies. 

The hope now lies with youth in the age of 18-25, currently studying in the universities and higher education institutes. These youth would be the young decision-makers by 2030, the deadline for meeting the SDGs and for cutting the global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by half. 

By 2050, the deadline for achieving ‘NetZero’ in terms of carbon emissions, the youth of today would be at the helm of the affairs in business and government and even at home.

Thus, it may be time for the current leadership to start involving the future leaders in the deliberations as they have a much larger stake in reaching and meeting agreements than any of the leaders in power today. The youth can also bring a new insight and a new vision for rewriting the UN Charter and revise, if need be, completely overhaul the framework of the United Nations.

Only when we begin involving the future in our present can we expect to be successful at present and in the future!