A worldwide compromise is in everyone’s best interest, according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday.
The comments were made by Guterres during a press conference that was conducted prior to the UN General Assembly’s 78th session’s high-level week.
World leaders and delegates will assemble at the UN headquarters in New York starting on September 18 to take part in a number of high-level meetings and festivities.
“My appeal to world leaders will be clear,” Guterres said. “This is not a time for posturing or positioning. This is not a time for indifference or indecision. This is a time to come together for real, practical solutions. It is time for compromise for a better tomorrow.”
“Politics is compromise. Diplomacy is compromise. Effective leadership is compromise,” he added.
He emphasized that “action is what the world needs now” and that the high-level week is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for world leaders to act for the greater good as well as to review the state of the world.
According to Guterres, the world leaders are meeting at a moment when mankind is facing enormous difficulties, including a deteriorating climate emergency, intensifying conflicts, a crisis in the global cost of living, skyrocketing disparities, and profound technology upheavals.
“People are looking to their leaders for a way out of this mess. Yet in the face of all this and more, geopolitical divisions are undermining our capacity to respond,” he said.
A multipolar world is emerging. While multipolarity can be a factor of equilibrium, it can also lead to escalating tensions, fragmentation and worse, Guterres noted.
“But at a time when our challenges are more connected than ever, the outcome of a zero-sum game is that everyone gets zero,” he said.
The UN chief told reporters that although there are divisions, different interests, different visions and different cultures, the world needs compromise.
“If we want a future of peace and prosperity based on equity and solidarity, leaders have a special responsibility to achieve compromise in designing our common future for our common good,” he said. “Next week here in New York is the place to start.”
