Tensions ran high at a recent United Nations meeting in New York City, where discussions about climate disasters, the ongoing war in Ukraine and the absence of several prominent world leaders divided delegates. During the week of Sept. 18, world leaders gathered for the U.N.’s 78th General Assembly Session. According to The New York Times, only one of the world leaders of the five permanent members of the Security Council, President Joe Biden of the United States, attended.
From Sept. 9-10, the 18th annual Group of 20 Summit — an intergovernmental platform that includes 20 of the world’s largest economies — took place in New Delhi, India. Its members include 19 sovereign states alongside the European Union and the African Union. This group accounts for nearly two-thirds of the global population, as well as over 75 percent of worldwide trade and 85 percent of global GDP, according to the G20 Secretariat. It was founded in 1999 following the Asian financial crisis as a call to facilitate global economic cooperation.
The United Nations adopted a new resolution on March 29, 2023, which requested that the International Court of Justice give an advisory opinion on countries’ obligations to combat climate change, a U.N. press release reported. The U.N. also asked the ICJ to weigh in on the consequences for countries that do not provide aid to efforts that combat climate change. The resolution highlighted developing island nations and the global south as regions that experience the impacts of climate change disproportionately.
Climate change has been at the forefront of international discussion with the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place this November. An event on Thursday, Nov. 10, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst discussed the social movements taking place in Latin America in support of the climate. The panel discussion, titled “A Blue Tide Rising in Latin America?” was held by the Political Economy Research Institute, and focused on the grassroots movements based on Indigenous peoples’ involvement to make a greener Latin America.
