According to the U.N., the world is in a “sorry situation” as a result of numerous “interconnected” problems like climate change and Russia’s conflict in Ukraine that are “piling up like automobiles in a chain reaction crash.” at the Wednesday meeting of the World Economic Forum.
On the second day of the exclusive gathering of world leaders and corporate executives in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gave his somber speech.
When news of a helicopter crash in Ukraine that killed 16 people, including the interior minister and other officials, sessions took a gloomy turn.
Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, dabbed her eyes in sorrow, calling it “another very terrible day,” Forum President Borge Brende asked for 15 seconds of quiet.
To appeal for further assistance, including weaponry, from international allies to battle Russia, the Ukrainian delegation, which includes the president of the country’s wife, was planned to address the summit via video link. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the only head of state from the Group of Seven largest economies to attend Davos, speaks just before Zelenskyy.
Scholz is under pressure to send tanks to aid Ukraine and will say just before Zelenskyy.
The “gravest levels of geopolitical division and mistrust in generations,” according to Guterres, are undermining efforts to address the world’s problems, which also include growing inequality, a cost-of-living crisis brought on by skyrocketing inflation and a lack of energy, the COVID-19 pandemic’s lingering effects, supply-chain disruptions, and more.
He called climate change an “existential threat” and claimed that efforts to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius were “almost going up in smoke.”
One of the world’s most vocal climate change advocates, Guterres, cited recent research that revealed Exxon Mobil experts had made surprisingly accurate forecasts about the impacts of climate change as early as the 1970s, despite the company’s apparent denial of global warming.
He remarked in his speech, “We learned last week that some fossil fuel producers were fully aware in the 1970s that their main product was baking our globe. Some members of Great Oil promoted the big lie.
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