By Olivia Murray
“But as we gather this weekend, the goals are in trouble.”
—United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres September 18, 2023
This is music to my ears.
There’s a scene in the 1992 film Batman Returns in which Oswald Cobblepot, also known as Penguin, ostentatiously pulls up to his cold lair where a diabolical mob is waiting, ready to hear Cobblepot’s “plan” to wreak havoc on the innocent citizens of Gotham City.
As they say, life imitates art, and this Hollywood production just became reality; yesterday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and an entourage of fellow globalists descended on the real Gotham City to devise a “plan” because frankly, their old one doesn’t seem to be working out that well. Guterres is Cobblepot, and the attending figureheads at the 2023 Sustainable Development Goals Summit are Cobblepot’s villainous collaborators—the similarities are striking.
This year’s two-day event comes at the midpoint of the Agenda 2030 scheme, which officially began on January 1, 2016. According to a summary statement posted to the organization’s website:
But the Agenda is a promise, not a guarantee. At the halftime mark, the promise is in deep peril. For the first time in decades, development progress is reversing…
Then, in an address delivered before the attendees yesterday, Guterres said, “Today, only 15% of the targets are on track, with many going into reverse,” and issued a call for a “global rescue plan” to pull the SDGs back from the brink of uncertainty.
Prior to the event, Guterres sat down for an interview with Mita Hosali, the Deputy Director of UN News; Hosali opened with this:
We’re speaking here on the cusp of the 78th General Assembly Session, where a record number of world leaders are expected, but from the P5, only one head of state … What does this say about the U.N. as a center of diplomacy, at a time when there are crises on so many fronts?
(The P5 refers to the “Permanent Five” nations to hold permanent seats on the Security Council established by the charter in 1945.)
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the answer to Hosali’s question—clearly “the U.N. as a center of diplomacy” is a rapidly diminishing prospect, along with the successful implementation of Agenda 2030 and the SDGs. That singular head of state? The Gaffetastic Joe Biden—no wonder no one else cared to come!
So are the rest of the “world leaders” even heads of state? Or are these “world leaders” just bureaucratic figureheads? Guterres responded to Hosoali in agitation (defensive much?), noting “first of all” that the Summit “is not a vanity fair”… but I’m going to have to stop him right there because that’s exactly what the U.N. summit is.
These “leaders” aren’t elected, but they’re gathering in New York on their own dime to pretend they’re legitimate policy-makers and political dignitaries? And, furthermore, the only actual P5 head of state that made it to this “very important” summit is Joe Biden, who, on top of being a complete dumpster fire, is himself illegitimately occupying the head of state role? How mortifying.
To echo the opening quote at the outset of this blog, Guterres then states that “unfortunately” at this point in time, the SDGs are “not moving in the right direction.”
I myself could not be happier.