UNGA 2024 Recap: Crises, Conflicts, and the “Pact for the Future” Dominate Talks
As the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) wraps up in New York, world leaders have addressed a range of urgent global crises, with much of the focus on the escalating conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine, and Sudan. Beyond the immediate conflicts, the assembly also addressed critical issues like antimicrobial resistance, climate change, and nuclear disarmament.
Lauren Risi, Director of the Environmental Change and Security Program, provides an overview of “Pact For the Future,” one of the key agreements to come out of this year’s UN General Assembly. Risi talks about how the Pact will help the UN adapt to the evolving landscape in which it operates and more effectively address future challenges. It addresses the role of artificial intelligence in our future, the shared global threat of climate change, and the changing dynamics of the global population.
Transcript of Video
UNGA 2024 Recap: Crises, Conflicts, and the “Pact for the Future” Dominate Talks
One of the significant outcomes of this year's UN General Assembly was the adoption of a pact for the future. This is a recognition by the member states that the context in which the United Nations is working is changing.
The pact introduces two key initiatives. One is the global digital Impact, which focuses on AI and the other is the Declaration on Future Generations, which is really aiming and attempting to account for the pressures that today's youth and tomorrow's youth are going to face in future years.
We have increasing conflicts that are protracted in nature and increasingly complex. We have a world that is being impacted by climate change and the frequency and severity with which climate impacts are hitting countries is growing.
We have the emergence of new technologies like AI. We have a changing population. The global population hit 8 billion last year. This is the first time that we've reached that number. And how that population is distributed around the globe is changing. We have an aging US and Europe and many parts of Asia, including China, and we have burgeoning populations in Sub-Saharan Africa.
So recognizing the complexity of the challenges that the United Nations is facing and its attempts to to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, these are the 17 global objectives that were laid out and have a target date of 2030. We are woefully behind in reaching those goals. So the the Pact for the Future is an attempt to sort of reinvigorate, and, improve the effectiveness of the United Nations.
Notably, but perhaps unsurprisingly, Russia, Iran and a handful of other countries opposed the adoption of the Pact for the Future, but they were unable to stop it from being adopted by the United Nations.
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Environmental Change and Security Program
The Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) explores the connections between environmental change, health, and population dynamics and their links to conflict, human insecurity, and foreign policy. Read more
