UN chief says power has polarized the world and urges leaders to cooperate

In a no-non­sense farewell speech, U.N. Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res urged glob­al lead­ers Tues­day to re­spond to the defin­ing chal­lenge to­day: Will the world con­tin­ue on its path to frag­men­ta­tion or co­op­er­ate to tack­le the ex­is­ten­tial threats from cli­mate cri­sis, run­away ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and in­ten­si­fy­ing in­equal­i­ties?

At the heart of these crises is pow­er, Guter­res told the an­nu­al high-lev­el gath­er­ing at the U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, point­ing to the “ir­re­versible” move to­ward a mul­ti­po­lar world, the “ex­tra­or­di­nary trans­fer of pow­er” from gov­ern­ments to a hand­ful of pri­vate cor­po­ra­tions and in­di­vid­u­als, and the in­creas­ing han­dover of pow­er from hu­mans to ma­chines with ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence.

Guter­res urged lead­ers to avoid what he called “the great frac­ture – the di­vi­sion of the world in­to two ri­val blocs with sep­a­rate eco­nom­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems.”