74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

Heads of states in the world are meeting this week at the 74th session of the United Nation’s General Assembly (UNGA) which is taking place at the UN headquarters in New York. The gathering seems pivotal this year with multiple issues at hand which are polarizing the world; from the unpredictability of the Brexit deal to disagreements on how to deal with climate change and not forgetting recent tensions between the United States and Iran. However, what made headlines regarding the United Nations has been the speech by Greta Thunberg, a young climate change activist, who told world leaders at the Climate Action Summit that they were failing her generation saying; "And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!"To look at this Benjamin Moshatama spoke to: • Dr Shingai Mutizwa-Mangiza, department of politics at the University of the Western Cape • Kumi Naaidoo, Secretary-General of Amnesty International, • Vishwas Satgar, associate professor at Wits Department of International Relations