WHITAKER
United Nations — A 17-year-old Honduran-American activist called for a youth movement to eradicate poverty and preserve the planet. The president of the tiny Pacific island nation said urgent funds are needed to develop his country and prevent the devastating impact of climate change. Actor and advocate Forest Whitaker urged people around the globe to join forces to achieve UN goals by 2030 that would transform the world.
They were among more than 150 speakers at a high-level UN General Assembly event Thursday to spur implementation of the 17 goals and 169 specific targets adopted by world leaders last September. They range from ensuring “healthy lives” and quality education for all to eradicating poverty, achieving gender equality, ensuring clean water, sanitation and reliable modern energy, and promoting economic growth and good governance.
“We are now in Year One of our 15-year journey,” UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told leaders from government, business and civil society. “We have embarked on an undertaking of great scope and ambition, creating hopes among millions around the world.”
The event took place ahead of Friday’s UN ceremony where leaders and diplomats from more than 160 countries are expected to sign last December’s landmark agreement aimed at preventing climate change.
Eliasson said that reducing the effects of climate change is crucial for progress on nearly all other goals.
Victoria Barrett, the 17-year-old climate activist, appealed for young people to help lead efforts to achieve the goals, saying: “We have been given the chance to save history.”
“We are all the 18 million people of Bangladesh projected to be climate refugees by mid-century,” she said. “We are all the girls in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia that still face barriers going to school. We are all the indigenous people around the world fighting for their homeland. … We are all the 3.1 million children that die every year from lack of proper nourishment, and we together must unite to save ourselves.”
Barrett said she will be 31 years old and possibly married with a family in 2030, the target for achieving the new goals, “and I want to be able to tell my children that I did all that I could for them.”