Planet in Peril: Role of the United Nations

The world we live in is at an inflection point. The global challenges are too complex to be addressed by any single country The United Nations (UN) was created precisely for such situations. The UN is now under tremendous pressure from various quarters including geopolitical, financial and the member-driven erosion of international law on which the UN Charter rests. Over the last 81 years, the UN has been a prime actor, witness and protector of the enormous civilizational progress that took place for the humankind and the planet earth. However, this progress in conjunction with the rising needs of the 8 billion global population “consuming at the rate of 1.7 planets a year”, have placed the Earth in peril. In this grim scenario, the role of the UN is indispensable. Often it is the UN Secretary-General, as a whistleblower and a messenger, who shakes the conscience of the member states in warnings such as “speeding past the limit to avoid climate catastrophe” or “673 million people still go to bed hungry every night”. Thus, at this critical juncture, the UN needs all the wherewithal to provide planetary safeguards for the complex challenges of our time including technologies such as Artificial Intelligence rapidly spreading across the world. This calls for looking at the genesis of the planet in peril especially in the post-decolonization period [1960-2026]. As a corollary, the scholarly task is cut out to examine the role of the UN processes and dialogues even as the UN.02 Action Plan are underway amid unprecedented financial squeeze. The need for futuristic cutting-edge ideas to rescue the planet was never so dire as it is today. The EPL remains a sentinel, within the scholarly realm, to provide a knowledge platform for ideas on securing our planetary future in the UN-led world order.