USA. President Joe Biden at the UN General Assembly session on Security Council expansion, climate and the war in Ukraine

Joe Biden during his speech at the General Assembly UN drew attention to the need to “update” international institutions, including financial institutions and the UN Security Council. He added that United States are in “serious discussions” to expand the Security Council with new permanent and non-permanent members.

“The United States is engaging in serious consultations with many member states, and we will continue to do our part to press and move reform efforts forward,” the US president said, calling for the expansion of the UN Security Council to include new permanent and non-permanent members, including Africa and South America.

– We recognize that to meet new challenges, our decades-old institutions and approaches need to be updated, he noted.

Referring to competition with ChinaBiden noted that his country is not seeking conflict with Beijing and is doing everything to manage relations responsibly so that the competition does not turn into war.

He also announced that he is ready to cooperate with China on global problems, the most important of which – and existential – is climate change.

– We see it everywhere: record-breaking heat in the United States and China. Forest fires engulfing North America and southern Europe. The fifth year of drought in the Horn of Africa, tragic floods in Libya (…) This snapshot tells us what awaits us if we fail to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, said the president.

He also stated that ever since he took power, the US government has treated climate change as an existential threat to the planet. He also drew attention to the adoption of the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes the largest investments in the green transformation in the country’s history.

– We must ask ourselves: Will we find the courage to do what must be done to save the planet? To protect human dignity, to give opportunities to people around the world and to defend the principles of the United Nations? (…) We must and we will do it, concluded Biden.

Biden warned that “if we allow the violation of basic principles, tame the aggressor and allow the partition of Ukraine,” then “no member of the UN will be able to be sure of its independence.” – Russia alone stands in the way of peace. Because Russia’s price for peace is the capitulation of Ukraine, Ukrainian territory, Ukrainian children, he emphasized.

– Let me ask you: if we abandon the founding principles of the United Nations to tame an aggressor, can any member of that body feel confident that they will be protected? If we allow the partition of Ukraine, will the independence of any country be safe? I respectfully suggest that the answer is no. We must oppose this aggression today and deter the aggressors tomorrow, he said.

The American president emphasized that an investment in the defense of Ukraine is an investment in the future of every country, and today’s leaders will be judged by history according to whether they have lived up to their promises to protect the basic principles of the UN.

Biden declared that despite Russian aggression and Moscow’s withdrawal from subsequent arms control treaties, including the suspension of New START, the US is still ready to make “good faith efforts to limit the threat of weapons of mass destruction.”