World leaders meet at UN as their planet grapples with war, division,
runaway AI and climate shocks
[September 21, 2026]
By EDITH M. LEDERER
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Under a global cloud of wars and bitter divisions,
world leaders meet at the United Nations this week facing new fears that
runaway artificial intelligence could threaten humanity even as climate
shocks and escalating prices are already making life much tougher for
hundreds of millions of people.
The annual high-level gathering at the U.N. General Assembly will also
be consumed with major wars in Iran, Gaza, Ukraine,Sudan, Congo and
Myanmar and a persisting question: Can the leaders do anything to end
them?
And what can they do about the relentless rise of global warming
threatening the future of the planet, the growing inequalities within
and among nations, and shocks to the global economy as blocked shipping
routes and supply chains increase the cost of living and slow growth?
The future of the United Nations will also definitely be on the agenda.
At 81, its powers are still the victorious nations from World War II,
not the 21st century’s major global players. The U.N.’s 193 member
nations have agreed to a wide-ranging reform package that includes
updating key institutions such as the powerful U.N. Security Council,
where the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France hold inordinate sway
because of their veto power. Reform, however, is easier said than
implemented.
Behind the scenes, there will be speculation about who will lead the
United Nations next. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ second
five-year term ends Dec. 31 and no clear successor has emerged.
This meeting is still pivotal
There is still no question that the U.N. remains THE gathering place for
its 193 member nations and their leaders. Some 130 heads of state and
government are expected to speak at the General Assembly starting
Tuesday along with dozens of ministers.
Among the headliners will be U.S. President Donald Trump and French
President Emanuel Macron. Both will speak Tuesday after Guterres’
opening “state of the world” address. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian speak Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — whom New York Mayor Zoran
Mamdani wanted arrested for his treatment of Palestinians in Gaza until
he learned he has no such authority — will address the assembly on
Thursday. For a second year, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won’t
be coming to the U.N. because the U.S. has refused to give him a visa.
He will nonetheless address the assembly by video the same day.
The United States, under its agreement with the U.N. to host the
organization, is required to allow diplomats from all member nations to
attend meetings.
Equally telling is who else isn’t coming. China’s President Xi Jinping
is meeting Trump in Washington on Wednesday, yet he is skipping — some
diplomats say snubbing — the U.N. gathering and sending a vice president
instead. Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t coming either, and
Indian President Narendra Modi has backed out.
France's U.N. ambassador, Jerome Bonnafont, said it is “extremely
critical” for world leaders this week to support the U.N. as the place
where the world’s nations meet — especially at a time of such
polarization.
“We believe in multilateralism," he said, "and we believe that the
high-level week is the occasion for countries in the world to reaffirm
that they prefer cooperation and dialogue to confrontation.”
United Nations has not had a great year
There is no doubt it’s been a tough year for the world body. It has been
pushed to the sidelines when it comes to its key responsibility of
ensuring international peace and security and trying to end major
conflicts in the Mideast and Ukraine. The U.S. failure to pay billions
of dollars in outstanding arrears has left the organization’s finances
in rocky shape.
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But veteran U.N. watcher Richard Gowan, the International Crisis
Group’s global issues and institutions program director, says 2025
was even worse.
A year ago, he said, people were contemplating that Trump would use
his U.N. speech to announce that the United States would leave the
world organization. Trump didn’t announce a pullout last September
and the U.N. muddled through the past 12 months with financial
troubles that forced cutbacks to its peacekeeping operations and
humanitarian aid.
In recent days, the U.S. paid $725 million of its dues to the U.N.’s
regular operating budget for this year, enough to keep the Trump
administration from losing its vote in the General Assembly. The
payment was a strong indication Trump will keep the U.S. in the
United Nations.
The U.N. is no longer “in freefall,” Gowan said, but it “is stuck in
an open-ended or permanent crisis.” Put more graphically, he said,
“The U.N. may not be in emergency care like it was last year, but it
does seem to be trapped in a trauma center for the foreseeable
future.”
Former U.N. deputy secretary-general Mark Malloch-Brown, a United
Nations Foundation board member, said, “While the world still trusts
the U.N., the global public is eager for change."
AI is pushing toward the center of the agenda
The future of artificial intelligence has pushed to the forefront of
global concerns, with its speeding advances and the dawning
recognition that there are no industry controls, let alone any
global guardrails for a technology that has many advantages but also
many disadvantages and unknowns.
Days before the global gathering, leaders of three major AI
companies warned about the technology getting out of human control
and called for a pause, but Trump dismissed their concerns as “a
hoax,” and urged continued advances to keep the U.S. ahead of China.
The U.N. Security Council added a high-level meeting on AI to its
agenda on Wednesday afternoon, a sign of the growing apprehension
and need to address the issue. It was already slated to hold a
high-level meeting on Ukraine with Zelenskyy on Wednesday morning.
For the U.N. chief, this will be his last assembly meeting with
global leaders. He previewed his speech last week, telling U.N.
reporters that power is shifting in “an era of deep uncertainty."
“At a time when the world faces three existential threats," he said,
“international cooperation is more necessary than ever.”
Others will be vying for the spotlight on issues from rising sea
levels and funding education to the fight for gender equality.
Hundreds of private meetings will also convene in U.N. cubicles,
hotels, diplomatic missions and restaurants.
Esther Brimmer, a senior fellow in global governance at the Council
on Foreign Relations and former U.S. assistant secretary of state
for international organization affairs in the Obama administration,
said in-person meetings can help countries hash out ideas that get
implemented months later.
She called the situation in 2026 “much more serious and complex than
in decades past."
“With that said, I’m also not without hope as well,” Brimmer said.
“Over the past decades we’ve learned a lot about international
cooperation.”
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