United Kingdom, 2008

It is humbling to

stand before this great Assembly today. Events of

recent weeks have proved beyond doubt that we are

now in a new global age. Living through the first

financial crisis and the first resources crisis of

globalization, we are a world not simply in transition,

but facing transformation, with change more far-

reaching than anything we have seen in our lifetimes.

The challenges, the opportunities for us and the risks

that we now face come together at the global

crossroads of the United Nations, providing the focus

for debate and decision here in this General Assembly

Hall.

A predecessor of mine said that if one built the

present only in the image of the past, one would miss

out entirely on the challenges of the future. It is to

those challenges of the future that I want to address my

remarks today.

In the next two decades, our world economy will

double in size. That means double the opportunities

and potential for more businesses, more jobs and more

prosperity. Extraordinary promise and opportunity

await, but there are also wholly new insecurities and

pressures — global problems that will require global

solutions.

The twin shocks of a global credit crunch and

soaring commodity prices lead straight to the front

doors of every family in every country, with higher oil,

gas and food prices, and higher costs for credit. But

because it is a global financial crisis and a global

shortage of food and resources, it will not be resolved

simply by individual nations acting in isolation,

although there is much that they can do themselves. It

will be solved in the end by us acting together.

I want to talk about how we can work together to

tackle financial instability and the intense pressure now

on our finite world resources. The immediate priority is

to help people everywhere cope with these difficult

times and to do so fairly. That is why, in Britain, we

have acted to help those hit hardest, assisting people

with the costs of gas and electricity, supporting

homeowners and the housing market and helping

people acquire the skills to do the new jobs of the

twenty-first century.

But if we have learned anything in the past few

years about the world in which we are now living, it is

that the world we share is more interconnected than

ever before and that the solutions have to be similarly

coordinated.

First, we must do all that it takes to stabilize the

still turbulent financial markets and, in the months

ahead, we must work together to rebuild the world

financial system around clear principles. In the short

term, each country is taking action to deal with the

fallout of the credit crunch, and the United States of

America deserves support from the rest of the world as

it seeks to agree on in detail what all parties agree on

in principle.

In Britain, we have taken decisive action to

promote stability in our banking system, protecting

depositors and introducing a temporary ban on short-

selling. We have already injected billions into the

market, making in excess of £100 billion available, and

announced only last week that our special liquidity

scheme will be extended until the end of January next

year.

Confidence in the future is also needed to build

confidence today, and that confidence will be built by

showing that what are global problems can be

addressed by globally coordinated solutions. I believe

there are five key principles behind that all nations

should unite around as we examine the future of our

financial system.

The first principle is that of transparency. People

must know what they are buying and selling, and they

must know what they are dealing with and not fear

what might be hidden on each other’s books. We must

look at the rapid introduction of improved

internationally acceptable accounting standards and

disclosure.

Secondly, there must be sound banking practice

and more effective regulation that looks not just at

solvency but at liquidity, at managing and pricing risks

for bad times and for good times, together.

Thirdly, there must be responsibility. No member

of senior management should be able to say he or she

did not understand the risks they were running and

walk away from his or her obligations.

Fourthly, there must be integrity. Most people

agree that companies should align reward with stability

and long-term gain because what matters is hard work,

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effort and enterprise. We should align the advice of

credit-rating agencies with the interests of the

investors.

Fifthly, just as banks are global and the flows of

capital are global, so oversight can no longer just be

national but must also include global supervision. That

is why we want to work to support immediately the

establishment of international colleges for each of the

largest global financial institutions — 30 of them by

the end of the year.

The international institutions built in the wake of

the Second World War have not kept pace with the

changing global economy. We need national regulators

to be cooperative, rules and principles to be consistent,

and international movements of capital to be

transparent.

The current era has been one of global prosperity.

It has also been an era of global turbulence, and while

there has been irresponsibility, we must now say

clearly that the age of irresponsibility must be ended.

We must now build that new global financial order,

founding it on transparency, not opacity; rewarding

success, not excess; and responsibility, not impunity.

That order must be global, not national.

Global action cannot be limited to financial

stability. We must also address another problem of

globalization — the global scramble for resources. We

need global action to deal with high commodity prices

and a rising global population demanding more energy.

Only by taking tough decisions on energy security and

climate change and by bringing together a new global

partnership of oil producers and oil consumers can we

bring stability to global energy markets and secure

sustainable energy supplies for the long term.

We are committed to tackling the global

challenge of climate change. Oil will of course

continue to meet a large part of our global energy

needs for some decades to come, but over the past year

we have seen the price of oil rise to as high as $146 per

barrel before falling again to $90 in the past month —

a fall of nearly 40 per cent. Such high and volatile

prices have a harmful impact on the global economy,

and all countries surely have a shared interest in

avoiding such dramatic swings in the price of scarce

resources.

We must now therefore consider whether the

current international architecture can bring the more

transparent and stable energy markets this global

economy clearly needs. We must bring producers and

consumers together, build common understanding and

address the issues through meaningful and sustained

dialogue. At the end of this year, I will be hosting a

global energy summit in London, building on the

momentum generated in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to agree

on key areas for further action. It is only by acting

together that we can make the most of the world’s

scarce resources and harness the power of our greater

interdependence for our common good.

Some say that in a time of difficulty we should

look inwards and cut aid; that we have an excuse for

walking by on the other side; and that, by our inaction,

we tolerate famine — but in today’s world, there is no

other side.

Africa is not part of the problem, but an

indisputable part of the solution. It is only by helping

Africa to become a net exporter of food rather than a

net importer that we can hope to achieve a long-term

end to soaring food prices. Only by restarting and

seeing the trade talks through can we help our

economies benefit from the annual boost of

$150 billion that would be achieved by removing the

protectionist trade barriers and trade-distorting

subsidies that currently cost developing countries the

most — $15 billion a year in their agricultural incomes

alone.

As Governments and as nations, we must respond

with courage and vision to the new insecurities that

face people, because while the global changes

happening all around us are complex, the instincts they

summon up in people are not. We must resist those

instincts that are protectionist. Now is not the time to

pull up the drawbridge, to seek solace in isolation or to

revert to an outdated and futile protectionism. It is only

by maintaining our open, flexible and dynamic

economies that we can best secure people’s jobs,

homes and standards of living in a global age.

Our global institutions have always had a

sweeping ambition, set up not against a single enemy

but against poverty, conflict, injustice and intolerance,

and set up in the belief that, for peace to last,

prosperity must be shared. Now we must build on the

idealism of the era that created those institutions and

change and evolve those institutions to meet the

challenges of the global age. This United Nations is

where the world turns to confront some of its greatest

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challenges. It is where international law is made, where

the most acute political problems are addressed, and

where the hopes of the world for a better future

ultimately rest.

For the past 40 years, it has been this United

Nations that has been the key forum where the

international community has sought peace in the

Middle East, and it is the United Nations that must help

the next Government of Israel build on the foundations

laid by Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas to

agree to a two-State solution that guarantees the

security of Israel and gives the Palestinians a viable

State.

In Cyprus, where the United Nations has been

present for 30 years and more, we have a real chance of

a settlement, thanks to new leadership, which has our

support.

In Afghanistan, the International Security

Assistance Force is training Afghans to take back their

country after two generations of almost constant

conflict. When the Afghan Government can deny its

land to Al-Qaida and its associates, the international

community will have done its job, but the task is hard

and long. Progress is encouraging, but must be

continued and stepped up.

In the Sudan, United Nations peacekeepers help

keep the fragile North-South peace agreement in place,

but Darfur remains for all of us a disaster. It is the

responsibility of the Government of the Sudan to create

the conditions in Darfur that will allow the conflict to

end and a new deal for the people of Darfur to be put in

place. Justice has to be part of any sustainable peace.

Difficulty has never daunted the United Nations.

Where we are rebuffed, we are resolute, so we must

also send a powerful signal of our support for

democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe. We must

stand firm against oppression in Burma. We must, as

we did yesterday, reaffirm the practical measures that

underpin our determination to defeat poverty. Now

would be the worst time to turn our back on the

Millennium Development Goals.

We have reached a unique point in the world’s

history. For the first time in human history, we have the

opportunity to come together around a global covenant,

to reframe the international architecture to make it fit

for the challenges facing us in the twenty-first century,

and to build the first truly global society and global

citizenship. Our history is not our destiny, it is what we

choose to make it.

Let us resolve today to end any irresponsibility,

to protect the global public interest by cleaning up the

world’s financial system and to reaffirm our

commitment to meeting our global responsibilities on

trade, poverty, energy and climate change, and let us

act upon that as people, as Governments, as nations

united. Let history record that ours was a truly global

response to the first truly global crisis.