Guterres makes proposals to improve UN

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has submitted proposals to improve the organization and international cooperation.

“Our world is edging towards a new abnormal — more chaotic, more insecure, more dangerous for everyone,” Guterres told journalists on Friday evening after presenting a landmark new report to the General Assembly earlier in the day.

“We are moving in the wrong direction, and we are at a pivotal moment.

“The choices we make now could put us on a path towards breakdown and a future of perpetual crisis; or breakthrough to a greener and safer world.”

In the report, called Our Common Agenda, Guterres proposed to hold a global summit in two years to consider issues including how to protect global assets – such as the oceans – and deliver on common aspirations such as peace and global health.

“The summit would consider too a new agenda for peace that would include measures to reduce strategic risks from nuclear arms, cyberwarfare and lethal autonomous weapons,” Guterres said.

The UN chief also proposed the creation of “an emergency platform bringing together governments, the UN system, international financial institutions, civil society, the private sector and others, that would be triggered automatically in large scale crises.”

He also suggested that a “special envoy for future generations” should represent “the interests of people who will be born over the coming century.”