UN Chief: 4 threats endanger global progress

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has said that he sees “four horsemen” or “looming threats” that endanger 21st century progress and jeopardize its potentials.

He was talking at the informal briefing of the General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.

According to the UN head, the four threats are the climate crisis, geopolitical tensions, the downsides of technology, and global mistrust.

Talking about the climate change, Secretary-General Guterres said, “We face an existential climate crisis.  Rising temperatures continue to melt records. The past decade was the hottest on record. Scientists tell us that ocean temperatures are now rising at the equivalent of five Hiroshima bombs a second.”

The UN chief added that there are one million species that are in near-term danger of getting extinct.

“Our planet is burning,” said Guterres. “Meanwhile, as we saw at COP25, too many decision-makers continue to fiddle. Our world is edging closer to the point of no return.”

Coming on the topic of global geostrategic tensions, the UN leader said that they are at their highest.

“Devastating conflicts continue to cause widespread misery,” said the UN principal. “Terrorist attacks take a merciless toll. The nuclear menace is growing. More people have been forced from their homes by war and persecution than at any time since the Second World War. 

Guterres stated that technology and trade tensions are still unsettled.

“The risk of a ‘great fracture’ is real,” said the UN chief.

On the issue of the dark side of technology, Guterres said that technological advances are moving so fast that the world is unable to keep pace with them.

“Technological advances are moving faster than our ability to respond to — or even comprehend — them,” he said.

Guterres further commented, “Despite enormous benefits, new technologies are being abused to commit crimes, incite hate, fake information, oppress and exploit people and invade privacy. We are not prepared for the profound impact of the fourth industrial revolution on the labor market and the very structure of society.”

Mentioning that machine learning brings with it, alarming possibilities, albeit breathtaking capacities, the UN person-in-charge said, “Lethal autonomous weapons — machines with the power to kill on their own, without human judgement and accountability — are bringing us into unacceptable moral and political territory.”

Highlighting “deep and growing global mistrust,” the UN chief mentioned a UN report released just a day earlier and said the report revealed two of every three people live in countries where inequality has grown.

“Confidence in political establishments is going down,” added Guterres. “Young people are rising up. Women are rightly demanding equality and freedom from violence and discrimination.”

He said before, “Disquiet and discontent are churning societies from North to South. Each situation is unique, but everywhere frustration is filling the streets. More and more people are convinced globalization is not working for them.”

The full speech of the UN secretary-general can be read on UN’s website, here.

Sharing similar thoughts, the UN leader told CNBC’s Sara Eisen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday that he thinks technology tensions are even bigger than trade tensions.

“We live in a difficult period where geopolitical tensions are also having an impact on the economy,” said Guterres, according to the unofficial transcript of the interview NBCUniversal, whose television arm – NBCUniversal Broadcast, Cable, Sports and News – owns CNBC, emailed US and Global News. “Because they generated, as you know, the trade tensions.”

“Technology tensions are even bigger in my opinion than trade tensions. And I think that these have slowed down growth and has contributed to the difficulties that the global economy is facing.”

The secretary-general, on the topic of US-Iran tensions, told Eisen, “It’s also essential to create conditions for a platform allowing a discussion about the future. Because this tension cannot remain forever. Because if this tension remains forever, we are at the mercy of an incident that then can trigger an escalation that will become extremely dangerous.”

On the US-China “Phase One” trade deal, the UN chief said on the CNBC interview, “The problem is not solved. And on the other hand, I think that especially the technology divides, is creating the risk. And the risk is that at a certain moment, the two biggest economies tend to polarize around them, dividing the global economy into two.”

The full interview of UN Secretary-General António Guterres can be watched on CNBC’s website, here.

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