UN Chiefs Chat <PERSON>, Climate Change, Migration, and Water with Global Voices · Global Voices
UN Secretary General <PERSON> before his interview with <PERSON> Journalism Fellow and Global Voices author <PERSON>. Photo by the United Nations, published with permission.
<PERSON> Journalism Fellow and Global Voices author <PERSON> conducted interviews with <PERSON>, United Nations Secretary General and <PERSON>, President of the UN General Assembly on November 11 and November 10 respectively in their offices at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The two UN chiefs answered questions relating to the impact of <PERSON> surprise election as US President on the organisation's work in key areas such as climate change and migration, as well as questions on other topics such as authoritarianism and water policy.
<PERSON> shock victory in the US presidential elections last week did not just throw question marks over the future of the world's biggest economy and most powerful international actor. <PERSON>'s promise at the Republican National Convention in July that “Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo” cast shadows over the very future of multilateralism and the international organisations that emerged from the wreckage of World War Two, while his views on key global issues such as migration and global warming have been well-documented.
But over at the United Nations Headquarters in New York there were no visible signs of panic at <PERSON>'s election, and two of the organisation's top-ranking figures appeared in relaxed spirits as they offered their views on some of the most important questions of the day.
This author's conversations with UN Secretary General <PERSON> and UN General Assembly President <PERSON> began with a review of the US president elect's statements on two of the most important deals overseen by the organisation in recent times, and moved on through authoritarianism, migration and water in Central Asia.
How to understand <PERSON> statements on Iran and climate change?
One issue that claimed a lot of column inches during <PERSON>'s presidential campaign was his suggestion that he might rip up the deal reached between Iran and the so-called 5+1 (Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the United States and the European Union) over its controversial nuclear programme.
On this topic, UN Secretary General <PERSON> said:
This is a deal which has been agreed upon by five members of Security Council and Germany and is fully supported by the Security Council. The US has played a crucial role among the members and the UN has been fully supportive of this agreement. Of course this deal may not be a perfect agreement, but we are not living in a perfect world. If there is anything that may not be satisfactory to newly elected president, he should discuss it with the parties concerned. What is important is the implementation of this agreement in a faithful manner. 820
Whatever he might have said as political rhetoric during the presidential elections, I feel sure that once he becomes the president in January, he will be committed to the agreement. Since the UN was established, we have seen many changes in US administration from the Democrat party to Republicans. But all of them have honoured such agreements.
President of the UN General Assembly <PERSON> (right) and Global Voices's author <PERSON> (left). Photo by the United Nations. Reused with permission.
While refusing to be drawn on <PERSON>'s specific comments about global warming and the Paris climate agreement (before becoming a presidential candidate, <PERSON> is on record as calling global warming a hoax invented by the Chinese, comments that during the campaign he denied having made) UN General Assembly President <PERSON> doubted that one man would be able to overturn the growing international consensus on the topic:
I don’t’ want to speculate on what he believes in and what he is going to do, but what I’d say it is that that it is very obvious that mayors, community groups, individuals, large swathes of America, realise that America’s best interest and humanity’s best interests lie in the clean energy future. If you are mayor of Miami, you don’t need somebody to tell you that the sea level is rising, you just walk down the street and see the water coming up through the grills in the street and see that you have got to do something about it. My point here is that while governments are obviously extremely important, it is people that will make the change. We are now seeing that renewable energy is moving towards being as competitive and even more competitive than fossil fuels in some instances, and what is good for business will be good for this country and the world, so I am not too skeptical about any of that. 289