Superpowers cannot solve world’s problems, UN chief says in final general assembly address

By R Anil Kumar

• António Guterres says humanity faces unprecedented convergence of threats but mechanisms for collective action are under growing strain

• ‘Cracks have become canyons’ as world faces four tests of power: Guterres

• Humanity faces four defining “tests of power” – around war or peace, inequality, climate change and AI – that will determine whether the world moves towards a new era of cooperation or deeper division, the UN chief warned the General Assembly on Tuesday, 22 September

New York/Bengaluru, Sep 22, 2026.

Key points

• UN chief urges binding international cooperation on AI governance, warning that life-and-death decisions must never be handed to machines
• Calls for Security Council reform, highlighting the continued “indefensible” absence of permanent African representation
• For the first time in its history, UN has achieved full gender parity across senior leadership and staff 

With roughly 100 days remaining in his term as UN Secretary-General, António Guterres delivered a wide-ranging speech that framed the world’s most pressing crises not as isolated problems, but as different expressions of the same underlying struggle over how power is exercised and by whom.

“The greatest power is not the power to dominate. It is the power to build a future that works for everyone,” he said, presenting his annual report of the Organization.

Describing a decade of eroding international norms – from civilians targeted in war, and humanitarian workers killed, to international law “cast aside” and fraying trust between nations – he said power itself is being fundamentally reshaped in three ways:

Emergence of new State powers

Significant transfer of authority from governments to private corporations and individuals

Growing role of AI and autonomous weapons in decisions once reserved for humans

“The faultlines in our world are widening,” he said. “Cracks have become canyons.”

Rather than accepting fragmentation as inevitable, he called for galvanizing cooperation and a truly global network built on interdependence and shared rules while warning against sliding into rival blocs with separate economic and security systems, a scenario he has termed in recent years the Great Fracture.

No real ceasefire in sight

Pointing to cascading crises across the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar, Mr. Guterres argued that so-called ceasefires have often amounted to little more than “lesser fires”, with civilians continuing to pay the price.

He renewed calls for compliance with International Court of Justice (ICJ) orders regarding Gaza and warned that settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank threatens to extinguish the two-State solution.

He also condemned Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a clear violation of the UN Charter.

Renewing longstanding calls for Security Council reform, he singled out the continued absence of permanent African representation as “unjust and indefensible” given the 15-member organ’s founding in a starkly different geopolitical era.

‘Equality is not a dream; it is a decision’

Highlighting the gap between record global wealth and the billions still lacking access to food, clean water, education and healthcare, he said inequality is not merely an economic issue but a question of power over opportunity, resources and self-determination.

He reiterated his long-held view that the international financial system leaves developing nations crushed by debt while facing climate disasters they did little to cause.

In this vein, he called for faster debt relief, bolder multilateral development banks and fairer access to Special Drawing Rights created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Devoting particular attention to gender inequality, he announced that the UN has achieved full gender parity across senior leadership, headquarters staff, and professional roles for the first time in its history.

“Equality is not a dream; it is a decision,” he said, citing progress at the UN as proof that entrenched power structures can change.

Twin challenges: Climate and AI

On climate change, Mr. Guterres said the crisis is the “most profound intergenerational power imbalance”, warning of a near-certain breach of the 1.5°C threshold.

Calling for polluters to “pay” and for developed nations to triple adaptation funding, he pointed out that major oil companies are reaping substantial profits since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while global adaptation finance for developing countries remains a fraction of that sum.

Turning to AI, the Secretary-General warned that power is increasingly concentrated in data, computing capacity and algorithms, advancing faster than humanity’s capacity to govern it.

“The danger is not technology,” he said. “The danger is technology without accountability.”

Outlaw killer robots

Guard rails on AI must be built, the UN chief said, adding that children must never become the test-subjects for unregulated systems.

“Life-and-death decisions must never be surrendered to machines,” he warned. “Killer robots must have no place in our future.”

To address this, he called for a multilateral AI risk management framework with independent oversight, stating firmly that children must never become test subjects for unregulated systems and that life-and-death decisions must never be surrendered to machines.

Stronger, not weaker

Mr. Guterres reaffirmed that peace, development and human rights are inseparable pillars of the UN Charter, rejecting any notion that dignity and rights can be divorced from security and opportunity.

In the face of global catastrophe more than 80 years ago on the battlefields of World War Two, the United Nations was created as an act of defiance of hope, of people who refuse to surrender the future to fear and of countries that know their futures are bound together.

Pledging to carry the “spirit of resolve” through his remaining time in office, he vowed to continue championing the UN Charter’s values, even after leaving his post as Secretary-General.

“The world does not need a weaker United Nations,” he said. “It needs a UN strong enough to face the world as it is and determined enough to build the world as it should be.”

The world’s fault lines have turned from cracks into canyons as superpowers show that they alone do not have the military, economic and technological power to guarantee security or solve the world’s problems, the outgoing secretary general of the United Nations said in his final address to the general assembly.

In a speech laced with despair but also glimpses of defiant hope, António Guterres said that over the last decade, largely spanning his 10-year period in office, “wars erupted with devastating consequences and dragged on with despicable cruelty. Civilians were targeted. Human rights trampled. Hunger weaponised. Humanitarians killed. International law cast aside.”

He continued: “Geopolitical divides have deepened. Inequalities have intensified. Trust has frayed. The climate crisis went from distant warning to daily reality. And artificial intelligence moved at a speed that has blindsided even those who created it.”

Without naming Israel, he said what followed the Hamas attack of October 2023 “was an onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza, with a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I have witnessed in all my years as secretary general”.

He rounded on profiteering energy companies for “treating the world as an open sewer”, described Africa’s omission from a permanent place on the UN security council as stunning, and called for a new compact to regulate AI.

Throughout, the 77-year-old Portuguese politician and diplomat argued that a multilateral system centred on a newly representative UN was the only way to address this new convergence of problems. However, he warned: “At the very moment when humanity faces an unprecedented convergence of threats, our mechanisms for collective action are under growing strain.”

Without mentioning Donald Trump once, he said what was required was “a recognition, especially by superpowers, that their power isn’t so super. Their power has limits. The events of recent years have made that unmistakably clear. Military power alone cannot secure peace. Economic power alone cannot command stability. And technological power alone cannot guarantee security.”

It was critical to avoid hegemonic tendencies and what Guterres described as the “great fracture” – the division of the world into two rival blocs with separate economic, technological and security systems.

The defining challenge of the age, he said, was that world governance, reflecting the power realities of a bygone age, was not adapting to the way power was being redistributed between and within states.

At the same time there was “an extraordinary transfer of power away from governments to a handful of private corporations and individuals. Their reach now extends across politics, economies, information flows, technological development, and the civic space on which societies depend,” he said. “Humans are increasingly handing over power to machines – with artificial intelligence agents going rogue, and lethal autonomous weapons going from science fiction to military reality.”

The choice was now whether the world was going to continue to fragment with rising tension, transactionalism and shrinking cooperation or change course towards a multilateral system centred on a UN that was balanced and representative. “The test before us is whether power will be exercised with the law – or beyond it,” Guterres said. “We must pass that test. We must defend the charter without double standards. Protect civilians without exception.”

He urged world leaders to stop letting civilians pay the price for the cascading conflicts across the Middle East. Demanding that the fighting must stop and humanitarian aid must flow, he pointed out that the international court of justice had ordered last year that the UN be allowed to fulfil its mandates in Gaza.

“Meanwhile violence, displacement and settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank are bulldozing the path to peace and raising the spectre of ethnic cleansing. We cannot allow the two-state solution to disappear before our eyes,” he said.

In Ukraine, Guterres said, “Russia’s full-scale invasion has subjected a sovereign country to a brutal war in blatant violation of the charter”. But now, he also warned, “in parts of Russia homes, energy and water systems and transport have come under repeated attack, threatening food and energy supply chains globally”.

For decades, he said, “big oil has treated the atmosphere as an open sewer – and cashed in on the consequences. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, five major western oil companies have pocketed nearly half a trillion dollars in profits. Compare that with just $34bn in international public adaptation finance for developing countries in the latest year reported.”

He added: “With a supersized El Niño coming towards humanity, everyday people are paying more for energy, food and insurance.”

Although he admitted a 21st-century security council without permanent African representation was unjust and indefensible, he defended the cash-strapped and much maligned organisation, saying the UN was where the powerful were held to account.

He announced that the United Nations had “achieved gender parity for the first time in history across all senior leadership … all headquarters … and all professional staff”.

“Equality is not a dream. It is a decision,” he said. “If the UN can change, so can businesses, parliaments, governments, peace processes.”