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Pope Francis Addresses U.N., Calling for Peace and Environmental Justice
(about 2 hours later)
UNITED NATIONS — It is the largest gathering of presidents and prime ministers ever at the United Nations. Some of them will assemble here under one roof for the first time in years, and their job will be to wrestle with global crises that they stubbornly disagree on, including climate change, the war in Syria, and a historic exodus of people fleeing conflict and hunger.
UNITED NATIONS — A day after making history as the first pontiff to address Congress, Pope Francis on Friday morning issued a sweeping call to the United Nations for peace and environmental justice, as he placed blame for the exploitation of natural resources on “a selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity.”
But even before they start lecturing one another at the United Nations General Assembly this week, the leaders will come in for a heavy dose of moral flogging by an enormously popular leader known for taking swings at the global elite: Pope Francis.
Standing before the General Assembly in his first speech here, Francis endorsed United Nations efforts to reach a global compact to fight poverty and climate change. He also chided world powers for putting political interests ahead of human suffering in the Middle East.
This is the first time a pope will address such a large gathering of world leaders at the United Nations, according to Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, who greeted the pontiff upon his arrival Friday morning.
He repeated his concern over persecuted Christians and, foremost, demanded that action be taken on behalf of the global poor.
Mr. Ban, introducing Francis to hundreds of cheering United Nations employees beforehand in the lobby, called them “the heart and soul of our work.”
“They are cast off by society, forced to live off what is discarded and suffer unjustly from the consequences of abuse of the environment,” Francis said. “These phenomena are part of today’s widespread and quietly growing ‘culture of waste.’ ”
The pope, speaking in English, thanked the employees, and called them “in many ways, the backbone of this organization.”
Francis became the fifth pope to visit the United Nations, and his appearance brought enormous security precautions and an electric atmosphere. People lined up before dawn to enter the building. Police boats floated along the East River that flows past the United Nations campus in Manhattan.
Francis will speak beforethe General Assembly later this morning, before the official start of a global summit meeting where an ambitious set of development goals are to be adopted, including reducing economic inequality and offering good schools for all.
The senior United Nations police officer barked into his cellphone at the employee entrance as an army of police, Secret Service and other security officers patrolled the area.
Lifting up the poor is a signature issue for Francis. Yet, he could give world leaders a tongue lashing for ravaging the environment, failing to protect people from mass atrocities and rejecting refugees who show up at their borders.
For the first time, the flag of the Holy See was raised above the United Nations headquarters. As a “nonmember observer state,” the Holy See has limited rights, but flying the flag was made possible by a resolution advanced by the delegation from Palestine, the only other nonmember observer state.
All are transnational challenges that defy easy answers. In a way, some argue, only a figure of the pope’s stature has the global popularity and moral authority (though no enforcement powers) to make the world powers take heed.
Francis’s global agenda on poverty and the environment is already well known but the rostrum of the United Nations gave him a global stage to articulate an agenda that mostly dovetails with the body’s Sustainable Development Goals, and with the program of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
“Governments and their leaders are not easily swayed by moral appeals, even from the pope, but they do respond to their public opinion,” said Louise Fréchette, a former deputy secretary general of the United Nations. She said the pope’s emphasis on issues like climate change and refugees could put pressure on governments to act.
Just as President Obama earlier this week basked in the presence of the popular Argentine pope, Mr. Ban benefited, too.
It is also a boon for the United Nations. “His presence,” Ms. Fréchette said, “underlines the continued centrality of the institution.”
“In no other hall, from no other platform, can a world leader speak to all humanity,” Mr. Ban declared in announcing the pontiff.
The secretary general certainly seemed to be looking to Francis for support nudging the 193 nations that make up the organization. “We expect that he will send his spiritual guidance to all the member states of the United Nations,” Mr. Ban said, a bit wistfully, at a recent news conference. “I really count on his leadership.”
Francis praised the accomplishments of the United Nations and its efforts to resolve conflicts and set human rights principles. Without that, Francis said, “mankind would not have been able to survive the unchecked use of its own possibilities.”
More than 150 presidents and prime ministers are scheduled to follow Francis at the development summit meeting that starts Friday. Then, on Monday, world leaders are scheduled to begin the annual debate, approaching the podium one by one under the illuminated dome of the General Assembly hall, to advance their agendas and, inevitably, take swipes at their rivals.
Francis also sharply rebuked the world powers on the Security Council for their failure to agree on a peaceful transition to the wars in the Middle East, apparently referring specifically to Syria and Iraq, where people “have faced the alternative either of fleeing or of paying for their adhesions to good and to peace by their own lives, or by enslavement.”
The two sessions, which United Nations officials call historic, feature an all-star lineup of autocrats, princes and populists, some of whom rarely show up at the General Assembly.
By contrast, Francis praised the recent nuclear agreement reached between Iran and world powers as “proof of the potential of political good will and of law.”
It will be the first visit by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in seven years and Xi Jinping’s first as president of China. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was last here a decade ago. His speech, scheduled for Monday morning, shortly after President Obama’s, will be among the most closely watched.
For environmentalists, Francis’s visit to the United States has been a boon. He has repeatedly raised his concerns about environment and climate change, as he did Friday morning at the United Nations. Invoking the principle of international law and equality among nations, Francis endorsed the concept of “right of the environment.”
The General Assembly conclave will produce the first meeting of Mr. Putin and Mr. Obama in nearly a year. The Russian envoy to the United Nations, Vitaly I. Churkin, would say only that he hoped frayed relations between the two countries would improve.
“Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity,” he said, later reprising his argument that the global poor are the biggest victims of environmental destruction.
“I don’t think it’s a second Cold War. But it’s very uncomfortable,” he said in a recent interview.
“A selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and the disadvantaged,” he said.
Syria will be front and center in this year’s deliberations. Russia and the United States are planning to host rival sessions, one in the General Assembly and one in the Security Council, on countering terrorist groups in the Middle East. The foreign ministers of all five permanent members of the Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — will also discuss Syria at a lunch hosted by Mr. Ban.
Francis spoke just before the formal opening of a special summit meeting to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals, a broad range of development objectives that echo many of his own priorities: uplifting the poor, saving the earth’s forests and seas, and combating climate change.
Those meetings come at a pivotal moment in the Syrian conflict, as Russia sends more men and matériel to aid Mr. Assad’s government, prompting American officials to open up military-to-military talks with the Russians. British and American jets have conducted airstrikes on what they call Islamic State positions. France has announced that it will begin airstrikes soon.
Of the 17 goals, the Holy See has formally objected to only one: gender equality, because of its longstanding reservations on ensuring “universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights,” which is one of the targets included in the Goals document.
The flurry of diplomacy may simply highlight the failure to prevent “the scourge of war,” as the United Nations Charter set out as its principal goal 70 years ago. Beyond Syria, the conflicts in Darfur, in western Sudan, and in Yemen and Libya continue, often with the involvement of regional and world powers.
Francis also delved into the contested issues of United Nations governance, with a call for “greater equity” on the Security Council, which seemed certain to please developing powers such as India and Brazil, which are not permanent veto-wielding members.
“Everybody is saying, ‘Somebody else has to do something.’ No one is saying, ‘What can we do?’//” Gerard van Bohemen, the permanent representative of New Zealand, one of the rotating members of the Security Council, said this month.
Before the pope’s speech,
At the General Assembly podium, the remarks of Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, will be closely dissected in Iran and elsewhere for signs of how Iran’s relationship with the outside world will change in the wake of the nuclear deal with six global powers. The influential Saudi foreign minister, Prince Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir, will speak as his country continues its military campaign against Houthi insurgents in Yemen. The Hungarian president will attend amid broad criticism for putting up barriers to refugees crossing Europe. President Raúl Castro of Cuba will come for the first time in decades, on the heels of a historic thaw with the United States.
Mr. Ban introduced Francis to 350 cheering United Nations employees in the lobby, calling them “the heart and soul of our work.”
And amid all this, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, will hoist the Palestinian flag for the first time at the United Nations.
For spots to see the pope in the lobby, 4,758 staff members put their names into a lottery.
All told, at least 12,000 people are expected in New York for the assembly. Here is what to expect on the three top issues.
“Dear friends, good morning,” the pope said in English, in his address to the staff shortly before 9 a.m.
First, with a deadline approaching for a global climate accord, there will be a great deal of attention on how national leaders pledge in the coming days to cut emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases. While major polluters like China, the United States and the European Union have announced their plans, other big nations — including Brazil and India — have not.
“Viva Papa!” went up a cheer.
Second, with bitter disagreement on what to do about the exodus of refugees and displaced people worldwide, the foreign ministers of the seven richest nations — the Group of 7, as they are known — will meet on Tuesday. The secretary general is also leading a General Assembly meeting on how to address the refugee crisis in Europe, though he is unlikely to propose any specific solution.
He called the United Nations staff members “in many ways the backbone of this organization” and made a joke about “all those who could not be here today,” and with a pause, “because of the lottery.”
European leaders had hoped for a small victory before their top leaders arrived, but that now seems elusive: a Security Council resolution to authorize their soldiers to inspect and seize vessels suspected in human smuggling in the Mediterranean Sea. That measure is facing pushback from African leaders who object to authorizing military action.
True to form, the pope thanked not only field staff members and interpreters but also “maintenance and security personnel.” He spoke slowly. He asked the nonbelievers in the audience to “wish me well.” A round of laughter and applause went up.
And then there is Syria.
The Islamic State has spread swiftly across the country since world leaders gathered here last year for their annual conclave. Russian and Western diplomats have continued to snipe at one another over who is more to blame for the chaos there — the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, or the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
The Western position on Mr. Assad’s future has clearly shifted since last year. The United States and its allies have dropped their public calls for his immediate ouster, saying only that Mr. Assad should step down by the end of a transitional political process.
“We all have to be creative in overcoming this divide,” one Security Council diplomat said this week, adding that even Mr. Assad’s most vociferous Western critics wanted to avoid a wholesale purge of his government. It would suffice, the diplomat said, if “tens, not hundreds,” were to be removed. The person asked not to be named because of the delicacy of diplomatic negotiations.
Russia welcomes the fact that American airstrikes have avoided the Assad government’s positions on the battlefield.
“To me it’s absolutely clear that one of the very serious concerns of American government is that Assad regime will fall and ISIL will take over Damascus and the United States will be blamed for that,” said Mr. Churkin, the Russian envoy.
Meanwhile, the war grinds into its fifth year, having killed a quarter million people and uprooted 11 million from their homes.
