What has happened at the UN General Assembly?
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How might these UN developments affect Ireland’s diplomatic position?
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The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk.
Now from world leaders to the biggest global challenges, the UN General Assembly has been in the spotlight this week. So what's actually been agreed? What are the key issues dominating the agenda? And what does it all mean beyond the walls of the UN? I'm joined now by Scott Lucas, Professor and Political Analyst at the Clinton Institute in UCD to tell us what has happened over the last number of days of the debate. You're very welcome, To the programme, Scott Lucas, I suppose we should start with Antonio Guterres and I think his address, because he listed, I suppose, some of the crises that are facing the world at the moment. And I probably don't need to repeat them for our listeners. Wars, AI, the climate crisis.
But it was the way he framed them that I thought was so interesting, Scott, as a real question over who holds power in the world and the shift, I suppose, away from governments of the world holding power to a number of key individuals and the failure, really, of the UN to manage that.
Yeah, I think Guterres was in his way without specifically name-calling, reflecting the fact that you've got the Russian invasion of Ukraine in its fifth year, which is largely down to Vladimir Putin. You have the conflict with the war on Iran and then the wars across the Middle East, which are largely down to Donald Trump and to Benjamin Netanyahu. At this point and then of course, you've got these broader questions regarding climate change regarding for example getting back to global health after the pandemic and and you have certain leaders who are holding out, who, in fact, deny climate change, who, in fact, have pulled out of the World Health Organization. So beyond these specific individuals that we could name, and there are more beyond a Trump or a Putin, you're actually looking at individual leaders who don't believe in the multilateral approach anymore, that collective approach anymore.
And what Gutierrez was really, I think, saying is – can we find a way to get back to why the UN was created in 1945, which is to avoid these conflicts, but also to deal with global problems by working together rather than thinking it's one country against another.
And you could really, I think, see that shift of power, couldn't you, on display in the White House this week when we saw Xi Jinping receive the warmest of welcomes from Donald Trump, attending a banquet and sitting at a table with, what some would say, the new masters of the universe, the new power brokers, the tech pros.
Well, I think all of that is in play, but I think what's interesting in that dynamic and in other events this week is that you see China playing one longer game in terms of developing its own alternative economic system, its vision of that system for the world, and politically, to be honest with you, taking advantage of some of these conflicts that are eroding American power. I think even though Donald Trump will play like he was – she's equal this week, the United States is in a serious problem with what is a failing war in Iran. It also has been a power which is now rejecting alliances, and it's rejecting working, whether you talk about Canada, whether you talk about the European Union. Its relations with even some of its partners in the Middle East are under strain.
And that has undermined the United States at the time when China was saying, hey, you can come work with us. You can come deal with us. And I think there was a symbol of this at the United Nations on another front, if I may, very quickly.
Right.
Denmark and Greenland signed this deal with the United States, a security deal.
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