UN head calls global situation 'unsustainable' as annual summit opens

“We can’t go on like this,” he said as the General Assembly’s annual debate among presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and other leaders began on Tuesday.

But, he said, “the challenges we face are solvable” if the international community confronts the uncertainty of unmanaged risks, the inequality that underlies injustices and grievances and the impunity that undermines international law and the UN’s founding principles.

“Today, a growing number of governments and others feel entitled to a ‘get out of jail free’ card,” he said in a reference to the classic board game Monopoly.

The world leaders’ meeting opened under the shadow of increasing global divisions, major wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, and the threat of an even larger conflict in the wider Middle East.

Guterres previewed his opening speech at Sunday’s “Summit of the Future”, where he pointed to conflicts from the Middle East to Ukraine and Sudan and to the global security system, which he said is “threatened by geopolitical divides, nuclear posturing, and the development of new weapons and theatres of war”.

He also cited huge inequalities, the lack of an effective global system to respond to emerging and even existential threats, and the devastating impact of climate change.