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This Week in Global Development
UNGA80: Trump, climate, and the biggest headlines from the summit
00:21:05
This week we are on the ground in New York to cover the 80th United Nations General Assembly and Climate Week. Our discussion breaks down https://www.devex.com/news/special-edition-unga-pressure-from-trump-110896, where he called climate change a...
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A
Foreign.
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B
My name is Rumbi Chakamba, and you're listening to this Week in Global Development, hosted by myself, Adva Saldinga and David Ainsworth. This week we're coming at you from Anga 80 in New York. And we have our reporters for on the ground, Jesse and Colum. Jesse and Colum, it's nice to chat to you column. We did an episode and you're back on because obviously you're UN Resident Express and you talked about drama at the UN General assembly this week, and obviously a lot of that focused on President Donald Trump and his speech. The speech has now happened. He had his speech on Tuesday. Lots of dramatic moments in the speech. So much to break down in this speech and a lot of confusing things in the speech as well. Can you take us through some of the things that he said?
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A
Yeah. So this was interesting because it was a pretty aggressive speech, but the UN Sort of community has gotten used to these kind of addresses and always come out of it saying, well, it could have been worse, but any event, but it was pretty. From their perspective, it was pretty bad. He really played up the issue of migration. That was a big theme, this notion of trying to project U.S. policy on the global stage. Basically telling the Europeans they needed to follow the American model, close their borders, exaggerating the impact of migration and immigration on the conditions in these countries. I mean, basically saying that they were beginning to practice Sharia law in London, that all of these countries are going to hell. So it was a very kind of hyper over the top sort of presentation. There was a lot of grievance in it. He brought up the issue about not getting a Nobel Peace Prize again. He boasted about having ended seven wars. He hasn't. But he keeps playing on that theme and expressed frustration with the UN for not participating with him and backing his efforts to achieve peace. So very negative on the UN Very negative on the Europeans, playing up American military strength, but boasting about the killing of Iranian senior officials, about the US Bombing campaign. He reiterated the point that they had totally obliterated Iran's nuclear program, a position that is contradicted by US Intelligence. So it had that kind of feel to it. But he didn't call for withdrawing from the un. He met with the Secretary General afterwards, had a completely contradictory message about how he's 100% behind the UN everybody kind of always walks out of these things with a little bit of whiplash. Right. And not quite knowing what the reality of US Policy is.
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B
Yeah. And speaking about dramatic moments in the speech, he also Spoke a lot about climate. I think he called this the biggest con job ever. Called UN Officials that speak on climate stupid people. Jesse, can you take us through the climate elements of the speech?
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C
Yeah, thanks, Ruby. So, I mean, it really started kind of more on energy. And we all know that he has some strong feelings about wind energy. That was very, very salient during this speec. He said, you know, renewables are a joke. They're not enough to make your country great. Said a lot about, you know, how they were too expensive, which has been proven time and time again to, to not be true. They're actually increasingly cheaper than fossil fuel energy. And, and then it sort of went into a broader commentary on climate and, and this sort of green transition. He said, you know, going green means going bankrupt. And he sort of congratulated Germany, which he said was previously going in that direction, and now the new leadership is pushing away from that. He also, and this kind of plays off of what column was saying, but he really targeted UN Officials here in saying, you know, that going. I think he went Back to like 2000 different science coming out of the UN was, was wrong. I believe he called UN officials stupid people. And so there was definitely some kind of direct targeting there on the science. And it did feel like he was kind of directly speaking to country leaders and saying if, if you're going to kind of go, agree and you're going to fail. And so there wasn, yeah, there wasn't much positivity there on the green side, the climate side.
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A
Yeah, there's just one sort of interesting kind of personal note is one of the reasons he's so dead set against wind farms is because he has a golf course in Scotland off the coast, and he's always complained about the impact they have on his view. So a lot of this stuff is kind of personal. And he also took issue with the decision years ago by the United nations to ignore his request to, you know, to, to oversee the renovation of the UN building. And he was complaining about it, you know, kind of linking it to, you know, the escalator stalling when he was coming into the building with the first lady and, and the failure of the teleprompter to work when he got there. However, it's kind of worth noting that the UN claims that both of those things may have been the US Fault. The US apparently was using its own computer to run the teleprompter, and apparently it wasn't ready by the time Trump walked up to the rostrum.
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B
And apparently there's going to be a Secret Service investigation about that. I'm not sure if that's the best use of time, but we'll find out. Hopefully we'll find out who is at fault. But Jesse, one thing that I'm interested in in the climate agenda is how are countries responding? Do we see people in agreement with Trump or are we doubling down on climate?
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C
I mean it is kind of that whiplash like that doesn't seem, it seems like these countries may have just sort of expected this type of rhetoric from Trump. This isn't a huge surprise. We know that this is how he feels about climate action. So far I have not seen any countries kind of respond to that and align themselves with it. There was a big climate high level summit Yesterday with over 100 basically coming to the stage for 3 minutes each and saying what the kind of giving some details of their new climate ambitions. So all countries that have signed up to the Paris agreement have to update their climate ambitions to align with those goals every five years. And this COP 30 in November is the kind of due date for one of those five year stretches. However, the commitments were actually due back in February and so far only 47 or so out of 197 countries have officially submitted. So yesterday when they were kind of coming to the stage, we heard a lot more of the countries that we haven't so far heard from. Some big emitters shared their, the details of their indices. China came up and said that they were planning on reducing emissions from 7 to 10%. The EU said 66 to 72%. So yeah, we're still seeing ambition. I do want to just give a little bit of background on the China ambition. Everyone that I've talked to after that has said, you know, China really keeps their, their promises very low but then they end up, they end up really surpassing them. And so like 7 to 10% is quite low for what China can obviously do. They've been investing in renewables for decades and they plan to continue doing this. So we're likely to see a whole lot more come out of China than, than 7 to 10%. But yeah, overall I think like the rest of the world's really moving on without, without the US on climate action. They don't seem to be really influenced by, by that speech a couple days ago.
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B
Good to note. But one thing that was missing from the speech and find this interesting that I feel like it's taken over the whole discussion. The speech has taken over the whole discussion around the UN which is not probably the best thing, but one thing that was missing from the speech was anything on UN reform, which is big on the agenda this year, as well as financing for the un what are the movements on that so far from the meetings column?
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A
Yeah, so, I mean, I think like Jesse said, you know, the world is kind of moving on, taking note of the American position. So it's not just, you know, moving ahead with these new climate commitments, but over the last several months, we've seen agreements on the pandemic treaty, US Wasn't involved, agreements on financing for development in Seville, a number of other treaty on the high seas treaty, which the US not involved in. So there is kind of movement on a whole number of fronts. There is still broad commitment that there is a need for international cooperation on the question of UN reform. I mean, this felt like this was very much a speech targeting a domestic constituency and to show how tough Trump is willing to be with foreign governments. So it's hard to tell because he was going on and off the script. So it's hard to know whether there was anything on UN reform in his speech and he just kind of went off the cuff at some point. But I think US Officials have generally been supportive of the UN Secretary General's efforts to reform the issue, to merge some agencies, to, you know, reduce some duplication, to, you know, unify back offices in various different departments. And they have kind of spoke well about it, as has Mike Waltz, Trump's new ambassador to the UN but, you know, it's not their initiative. So it's not clear whether when they finish this, when the UN finishes its reform process, that the UN US doesn't sort of get its act together on what it wants the UN to do and pursue far deeper cuts. I mean, we already see in the 2026 budget that there are quite draconian cuts expected both in the regular budget and wiping out funding for umps keeping billions and billions of dollars.
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Hi, I'm Kate Warren, Executive Editor at devex. If you are listening to this podcast, you are likely working to achieve the sustainable development goal. But are you subscribed to devex Newswire? Global development can be a fast moving, complex sector. Our team of global reporters work every day to bring you the news you need to make sense of it all. In devex Newswire, we keep you up to date on issues ranging from climate change financing to gender equality and global health to transforming the food system. All in a fun to read free newsletter delivered directly to you five days a week. Join the hundreds of thousands of global development professionals who receive Devex newswire and visit devex.comnewsletters to sign up to this free newsletter. Today.
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B
On the Reform Agenda. One thing I'm curious about is how the process is supposed to work. Part of the plan, I understand, and this is the secretary general plan includes sunsetting UN AIDS by next year. But UN AIDS had actually come up with a different plan, which I think it published a few months earlier. Their plan talked about sunsetting by 2030 and reviewing the decision to sunset in 2027 to see if it makes sense for the agency to sunset in 2030. So I'm curious what role the agencies are supposed to play in this and what role the UN Secretary General plays in all this and if there's any clarity around that column.
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Right. So that's an interesting example, and it's just one case, and it's partly because UNAIDS came out immediately after the secretary General rolled out his own proposal for the elimination of UNAIDS at the end of next year and made its own case. And basically what they said was that we got together, we've been involved in developing our own reform process. It involves massive cuts, it includes lots of other changes, but that we're still focused on reaching the Sustainable Development Goals on health issues and reductions in hiv. So what this shows you is how, you know, the structure of the un, which is that the un, the secretary general controls the UN Secretariat, but he doesn't necessarily control unaids, unicef, unhcr. They all have their own executive boards which are made up of member states. They have their own sort of chain of command. They control their budgets. So the secretary general just can't say to them, I'm going to do this. So what's going to happen is the secretary general will lay out or he has laid out all of his proposals. They will be put to the membership in New York, and they will make decisions on what parts of those reforms they will accept. But in parallel, all the different agencies will be pursuing their own reforms. So they will not be getting instructions from New York on what to do. They will be influenced by that discussion, but they have their own executive boards that will be involved in that decision. Often, you know, these are the same member states that are, you know, in the committee in New York that negotiates the budget. But, you know, it's a more it's, you know, it's it's not like all 193 members. It's a smaller group, and they may have different views on how this is going to play out.
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B
Thanks, Colm. And jumping back to you, Jesse, you listened in on an interesting discussion with David Lammy, who is the Prime Minister of the uk, I'm curious, because one thing that I find really interesting, and which must be really quite a change for membership states, is that the US is a completely different ally from what it was during the Biden administration. So I'm curious what his thoughts were on the relationship with the us.
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C
Yeah. So, I mean, just to review, going back to Trump's speech, he, as Colin mentioned, he. He did target some of the UK stuff. He, I think he called the London mayor. I don't. I don't remember the exact words he used now, but, like, very, very insulting of the London Mayor. And then he said, like, Sharia. They were instituting Sharia law. And so this comes right off the Trump visiting the uk, and they really rolled out the red carpet for him. He met the King. It was a really big deal there. And so I think David Lammy's response was really diplomatic. Of course he was. He. He really just highlighted that, you know, the US and UK have a special relationship and that together they're. They're, you know, kind of really essential to the world's security complex and. And military. He really didn't comment too much on the speech. I will say, however, though, like, I was there in person and there as the question came out about this, about this, about Trump's speech, there was quite a lot of laughter from David Lemmy himself and from the audience. So there's this just sort of like. And this seems to kind of be going. This seems to be everywhere where, like, everyone knows that there's a big question of, you know, what Trump's saying, and then no one really says out loud what. What they're thinking about. It would make sense. I mean, that's. That has to be the politics of. Of the day. But, yeah, overall, David Lemmy stayed very diplomatic and. And just kind of highlighted that the US and the UK have a strong relationship on immigration too. He mentioned, I think he said, every Western leader has to deal with the issue of immigration. They have to have a response for it, whether that be, you know, a liberal response or a conservative response. And this is Trump's. Not a whole lot to go off there, but I think probably the only answer David Lemmy felt he could give at the time.
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B
Interesting. And finally, Col, thing that was something to look out for is what's going to happen in terms of funding for the UN peacekeeping missions. Do we have any more clarity on that? Because I know this is one area that's quite of interest to The US Itself.
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A
No, definitely no clarity. Essentially, you know, there was a pocket decision that was, was initiated by the White House and backed by Congress some several weeks ago, which cut deep into peacekeeping funding. We have a 2026 budget which is still kind of in the works, hasn't been agreed, but that the White House calls for, you know, basically wiping out funding for peacekeeping, billions of dollars worth of funding. But at the same time, you know, the U.S. diplomats in New York are supporting peacekeeping missions. They have led a negotiation to extend the mandate for the South Sudan mission some months ago. They have been saying positive things about the peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a mission that is, you know, sort of related to a peace agreement between the Rwandans and the DRC that was hosted by Donald Trump in the White House. So, and then sort of more recently, we have, the US Is leading an effort to adopt a resolution in hopes by next week to create a gang suppression force in Haiti. The two parts to that. One of it is that, you know, the US Would have voluntary funding for troops and troop payments. And, you know, the one thing about voluntary funding is that while it kind of aligns with American ideology about, you know, being able to pick and choose what it pays for, it also would put probably a greater burden on the Americans to carry a greater financial share than they would through assessed funding where they're assessed 25% and the rest of the world has to cover the rest. There is a very expensive UN Support package providing logistics that's part of this resolution that would be a CEF funding. So this is, you know, could be hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and the US would be on. Would have to pay between 25% of that. So, you know, the White House is saying we want to wipe it out, and the diplomats are sort of authorizing new financial obligations. And so the rest of us are left scratching our heads and figuring out, you know, what point does the, you know, does this get sorted out between the State Department and the, the White House Budget Office, and we figure out what our policy is.
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B
Definitely something to look out for. And is there anything else that you're on the lookout for? The sweet quasm?
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A
Well, I mean, just a follow up on that. Also, Secretary Rubio, Marco Rubio, was expressing concern about his ability to get the Haiti mission across the finishing line. And he singled out China as someone who is objecting to, you know, who is raising concerns about the US Resolution which needs to go through the Security Council, and China has to go along with it. So there's that obstacle. I think we're all waiting to hear, you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu's address to the General Assembly. They're always quite combative. This one will be especially so there is sort of questions about whether he will make any announcement about, you know, the partial annexation of the west bank, sort of saying that it's justified by the unilateral announcements earlier by countries to recognize a state of Palestine. So that's going to be, people are going to be paying close attention to that. But otherwise people are starting to wrap up things. I mean, the meeting will go on till, I believe, Monday. But really the big hitters are already leaving town today or tomorrow.
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B
I hope that means better traffic. Jesse, anything you're on the lookout for?
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C
Similarly, I think a lot of stuff is starting to wrap up on the climate side. There was a big announcement from President Lula of Brazil that they were going to give 1 billion into this new forest based fund that Brazil itself has launched. There's some back and forth. There's a lot of activists are really hopeful about this fund. It's supposed to be $125 billion investment fund for tropical forest countries to keep their forest standing. Brazil would benefit by far the most from this fund if they were to stop deforestation. And so some are feeling like, okay, well if you're going to benefit the most, maybe you should give a little bit more into it. But for now this is the first investment and, and seen mainly as a symbolic gesture. So something to look at, you know, is are we going to see more countries invest money into this fund? Perhaps Norway, that has been a big ally, the UK and Germany. But throughout climate circles this is a really big topic and a really kind of hopeful idea and something to look out for moving towards cop 30.
- [20:01]
B
Thank you. And I am about to make my way to the high level meeting on NCDS which has been one of the big health components happening here at Anga 80. It's happening this morning and the declaration is already out. There are some disappointments on what the commitments governments have made to NCDS because there's some key missing elements on tackling air pollution. And we have a story out from Katherine Davison on that. So if you haven't already, please check it out on our website. And then also missing commitments on health taxes, on targets for health taxes which were included in a previous draft and that's now missing in the final element. But just going to the final event this morning and we should have a story out on that later on today. But thank you guys so much for joining me. And we'll definitely be on the lookout for all your reporting.