Despite the massive challenges of climate change, disease outbreaks and conflict, there is a glaring lack of leadership committed to long-term, science-based solutions, former world leaders told a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.

“We need leaders who have a long-term view and take decisions that, many times, are unpopular or difficult,” said Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Colombia and chair of The Elders.

“The UN has never met in more difficult times since its creation after the Second World War,” added Santos, calling for reform of the UN to “recover the world order from this present world disorder”.

Mary Robinson, Ireland’s former President, said that leaders need to be in “crisis mode” to tackle climate change and health.

“Some [leaders] are saying extraordinary things, but the science is clear, and it’s vital on climate and health. Somehow leaders are not actually grounding their way forward on science,” said Robinson.

Her sentiment was echoed by Helen Clark, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, who reminded the audience that the world had faced darker times – but conceded that at present “leadership is a missing component”.

Clark stressed that the UN High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Preparedness in a year’s time needs to be a rallying point for countries, who need to address the crises of health and climate together.

“It’s amazing how bereft we are of profound ideas,” said Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“Just look at Gaza. It’s emblematic of where the world is today: the enforced starvation of children, and we just sit there and sit there and we denounce and we condemn. Something has to snap, and we have to regain a sense of responsibility.”

Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and former Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) added that world leaders cannot only think about their countries but about the world.

Shortly after The Elders spoke, US President Donald Trump told the UNGA that climate change is the ”greatest con job ever perpetrated in the world”, and that UN climate change predictions ”were wrong” and made by ”stupid people”.

In a panel after the Elders, Wellcome CEO John-Arne Røttingen said that countries formerly dependent on aid, particularly in Africa, were determined to assume more responsibility for their own systems and capabilities, and this was a positive move.

However, he warned that a focus on national sovereignty ran the risk of undermining the collective action and mechanisms needed to tackle common problems of climate, outbreaks and pandemics.

“Without the mechanisms to look at the leadership, the evidence and the financing we need for the collective problems, we will have big problems coming,” warned Røttingen.

The Gates Foundation’s Dr Chris Elias warned that the current era of “crisis and scarcity” is “incredibly dangerous” as people tend to “focus on what’s in front of you” rather than take a long-term view.

Since the massive withdrawal of donor aid by the US earlier this year, the Gates Foundation has assisted several governments, and most want data and analytics to empower them to determine what they should priotitise.

“The role of philanthropy in a time of both crisis and scarcity is to work closely with countries as they weather this storm and, at the other side, to invest in some of those global public goods that are unlikely to get prioritised by individual countries or even regional bodies at a time of crisis,” said Elias, highlighting the Gates Foundation’s announcement on Monday to invest $912 million in the Global Fund over three years.

US ‘science denial’ is an ‘attack on global health’

While several speakers avoided naming the US when lamenting how global priorities have been abandoned and undermined, Brazil’s Health and Environmental Surveillance Secretary, Dr Mariângela Simão, did not mince her words.

“We have attacks on multilateralism. We have attacks on specific countries. And my country is being attacked,” she said.

‘The US government is saying to Brazil that you shouldn’t put in jail in the ex-president [Jair Bolsanero] who tried to do a coup d’etat,” said Simão. 

The US “denial of science” is also an attack on global health, she added. “When denial is becomes a public policy, it affects the world. [There is] an attack on vaccines, and what we see in the Americas is a surge of measles.

“Brazil and our neighbours are all trying to stave off [outbreaks] by boosting up our vaccine coverage. But it doesn’t help when the US says you don’t need to vaccinate newborns against Hepatitis B unless the mother is positive.”

However, Simão said that Brazil, which hosts the next climate COP in Belém later this year, is working on a health action plan that will address how climate impacts on health.

Simão is leading Brazil’s health delegation to the UN after the US restricted Health Minister Alexandre Padilha’s visa to within “five blocks of the UN”. The US has also refused to give visas to the leaders of the Palestinian Authority to attend UNGA.

Preparing for pandemics

Priya Basu, who heads the Pandemic Fund, said there is “huge demand” from countries for support – with demand exceeding available funds five-to seven-fold every time the fund called for proposals.

“We have distributed $7 billion of pandemic prevention, preparedness and response investments across 75 countries in six regions,” said Basu.

These focus on surveillance, laboratory, strengthening workforce, and surge capacity that can be ramped up in crises.

Meanwhile, Felicitas Riedl, director of Innovation and Competitiveness at the European Investment Bank (EIB), said her bank invested in projects that had a “systemic approach” to addressing “health, climate and biosecurity”.