2024-09-25 08:12:14
The United Nations adopted a directional blueprint for the future to address war, environmental threats and technological challenges; World leaders hailed the global organization as ‘groundbreaking’.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, champion of the ‘Pact for the Future’, has steered its ‘landmark agreements’ towards more effective, inclusive, networked multilateralism.
The United Nations General Assembly announced the plan on Sunday (22 September) to unite the world’s increasingly divided nations to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
The 42-page ‘Pact for the Future’ covers a wide range of themes including peace and security, sustainable development, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and future generations and global governance transformation. It also contains two annexes: a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations.
Sign up as a monthly member and be a part of our community of climate champions, moving the conversation forward, said the UN Secretary-General, calling for a stand-up as we tackle the critical challenges of climate change.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, ‘We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink. He thanked world leaders and diplomats for opening the ‘door’ to a better future. He said, it is our common destiny to go through it now. It demands action, not just agreement.
Among the 56 actions and commitments that countries have pledged to achieve, some address the climate crisis, such as accelerating efforts to meet obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. Signatories reaffirmed the COP-28 agreement—which calls on countries to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a fair, orderly and equitable manner to achieve net-zero by 2050 and triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.
The agreement emphasizes the importance of climate finance as countries recognize the importance of adaptation finance and commit to ‘further operationalize and capitalize’ the new financing mechanism for damage and loss funding, which was formally adopted at COP-27 in 2022. Contributions to the fund reached just under $700 million at last year’s UN climate conference in Dubai, which is less than 0.2% of the economic and non-economic losses of developing countries due to global warming each year.
COP-29 host Azerbaijan last week announced plans to launch two climate finance initiatives during the November summit in the capital, Baku. However, there is no indication that countries will be able to agree on a new global climate funding target, which a recent UN report says needs to reach at least $500 billion per year.