PM standing in for prince for Earthshot
NEW YORK: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was due to step up for Prince William at the United Nations early this morning (NZ time), lending her voice to a climate change charity launched by the prince and speaking at an event he was meant to front.
In late August, it was announced the Prince would travel to New York to give a speech at the Earthshot Price Innovation Summit, which is taking place on the sideline of the UN General Assembly.
The death of his grandmother, the Queen, forced him to cancel.
Ms Ardern, a supporter of the charity, took on an expanded role, making opening remarks alongside former New York City mayor and billionaire philanthropist Michael Bloomberg.
It is not known whether Prince William asked Ms Ardern to take on the greater role when they met in London ahead of the Queen’s funeral.
The Earthshot Prize seeks out innovative solutions for environmental problems, awarding them funding and connections to turn their ideas into reality and scale them into broader environmental solutions.
Ms Ardern was due to appear on a panel with former prime minister Helen Clark, who will be chairing a session on responding to pandemics.
Ms Ardern has time in her schedule for other meetings with world leaders, although these have yet to be announced.
On the first day of the General Assembly meeting, Ms Ardern briefly met Samoan Prime Minister Naomi Mata’afa, who was attending the event for the first time, and Iceland Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir.
Ms Ardern is one of about 150 world leaders attending the General Assembly’s ‘‘high level week’’, the first UN inperson event since the start of the Covid19 pandemic.
Secretarygeneral Antonio Guterres opened the assembly yesterday with a dark and ominous speech, warning the world was in ‘‘big trouble’’, before questioning whether the UN had the ability to rise above geopolitical gridlock and meet those challenges.
The UN failed to halt Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, and Russia’s wielding of its veto power on the UN Security Council is blocking progress on other areas such as nuclear disarmament.
Mr Guterres warned ‘‘progress’’ was ‘‘being held hostage by geopolitical tensions’’.
Ms Ardern expected Ukraine would dominate this week at the UN.
Mr Guterres warned, ‘‘we are in rough seas’’, adding ‘‘A winter of global discontent is on the horizon. A costofliving crisis is raging. Trust is crumbling. Inequalities are exploding. Our planet is burning.’’
Ms Ardern met French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday. The pair announced research into the way online algorithms could be harmful and help to radicalise people by pushing ever more violent content into social media feeds. The initiative is backed by New Zealand, the United States, Twitter and Microsoft, but is notably missing tech giants Facebook and Google.
The partners will build and test a set of privacyenhancing technologies.