G20 Summit: UN Secretary-General urges group to be at forefront of global action

The UN Secretary-General highlighted on Sunday that the G20 group needs to be at the forefront of global efforts to bring about peace, climate action, fairer international financial institutions and equitable access to emerging technologies.

Guterres came to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from the COP29 Summit in Baku. He stressed the need for countries to race much faster to combat fundamental common challenges such as the climate crisis, rising impunity, increasing inequality and raging conflicts.

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The COP29 climate conference is happening against a backdrop of serious natural disasters, fuelled by climate change. It is being billed as the ‘finance COP’ as participants come in from across the globe to set another annual climate financing target.

The G20 must lead by example: UN Secretary-General

On Sunday, the UN Secretary-General noted in Rio de Janeiro that the global community is facing many challenges today, but numerous possible solutions also exist. “The G20 must lead by example,” he stressed ahead of the Summit.

Guterres recalled that in September, UN Member States adopted the Pact for the Future to help strengthen multilateralism and bring progress in the SDGs. He said the Pact calls for ambitious reforms to make the system more representative of today’s global economy.

For his final point, he highlighted the Global Digital Compact adopted at the UN Summit of the Future. It calls for an independent international Scientific Panel on artificial intelligence and financing so that each country can build AI capacity.