The future is not something to predict, but something to build. ~ Franco Ongaro ESA
What is the UN Summit of the Future?
The Summit of the Future: multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow will be hosted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on 22-23 September 2024. The organisers are calling it a “once-in-a-generation opportunity“, aiming to strengthen global governance for the sake of present and future generations. The goal is to agree on a concise, action-orientated Outcome Document (“A Pact for the Future”) in advance by consensus through intergovernmental negotiations and endorsed by Heads of State/Government at the Summit. In addition, the summit may address the possibility of a UN Special Envoy for Future Generations, an option the World Future Council has long advocated for – as well as other institutional reforms or initiatives that protect and enshrine the rights of future generations.
With UN-resolution adopted on 8 September 2022 setting out the modalities for the Summit of the Future, further planning is to take place at the HLPF this July and the SDG Summit in September 2023.
The UN Summit of the Future is a timely initiative by the United Nations as we face historically unprecedented challenges, both in their globality and their vast time horizon: with many of the decisions we make today we are not just affecting the next century or two, but millennial or even geological time spans. It is therefore most urgent to address the long-term impacts of our actions. How can we protect the future against the pressures of the here and now?
The Summit of the Future follows on from a series of UN Summits. Last year, at the UN Environment Stockholm+50 conference in June 2022, relations between humans and nature were top of the agenda, in December 2022, the Kunmig-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted and most recently, the High Seas Treaty, also known as the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction treaty (BBNJ) was agreed in March 2023. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on world leaders to end a “senseless and suicidal war against nature: We know what to do. And, increasingly, we have the tools to do it. … I appeal to leaders in all sectors: Lead us out of this mess”.