Global co-operation is vital to address the challenges ahead, says António Guterres,
secretary-general of the United Nations
We also need a vaccine for our overheating planetCOVID-19 IS A test of international cooperation—and it is a test the world is failing.
With some notable exceptions, countries have focused on themselves and defined their
own strategies, sometimes in contradiction to what their neighbours were doing. We
have seen the results. As countries go in their own directions, the virus has gone in
every direction. Populism and nationalism, where they prevailed, did not contain the
virus and often made things manifestly worse.
Rich countries mobilised resources at unprecedented levels, but much-needed
resources are not reaching developing countries, which could face crippling debt and a
liquidity crisis. Now, as a new year looms, the challenges are clear: the pandemic
response will consume 2021 and the climate crisis will drive the decade. A sensible,
sustainable recovery must start now.
Many are pinning their hopes on a vaccine, but there is no panacea in a pandemic. The
priority is ensuring that any vaccine is a global public good—a people's vaccine
available and affordable for everyone, everywhere.
We also need a vaccine for our overheating planet. The five-year period since the
signing of the Paris agreement on climate change has been the hottest on record.
Greenhouse-gas concentrations in 2021 will reach heights unseen in millions of years.
Ahead of the next United Nations climate conference in November 2021, I have urged
world leaders to submit more ambitious national plans and long-term strategies aligned
with the Paris agreement and the goal of limiting the average temperature rise to 1.5ºC.
All countries, especially g20 members, should commit themselves to carbon neutrality
by 2050. All companies, banks and cities should establish their own plans and
benchmarks for a transition to net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases.
Technology and economics are on our side. A green economy fuels employment.
Renewable energy generates three times more jobs than investments in fossil fuels.
Bail-outs of industry, aviation and shipping should be conditional on aligning with the
goals of the Paris agreement. It is time to end fossil-fuel subsidies, put a price on carbon
and commit to no new coal.
Pandemic recovery is our chance to re-engineer economies and re-imagine our future.
Recovery must also advance gender equality; no other single step could do more to
fortify societies for the future. As vast sums are deployed to re-energise economies, how
these funds are spent is a critical matter for people and planet alike. Covid-19 response
and recovery also depend on silencing the guns and standing up for human rights. The
fury of the virus shows the folly of war. A surge of hatred and misinformation has
heightened the dangers. That is why I have called for a global ceasefire.
We must also avoid a new cold war, where the two largest economies split the world in
a Great Fracture—each side with its own trade and financial rules, internet and