Yahoo News Joe Biden tells world leaders it is a ‘decisive decade for our world’
Joe Biden has implored the world to work together to tackle issues of Covid-19, climate change and terrorism as it stands at “an inflection point in history”.
The US President addressed world leaders in his speech at the 76th annual UN General Assembly in New York before hosting Boris Johnson at the White House later on Tuesday.
Mr Biden said: “This is the clear and urgent choice that we face here at the dawning of what must be a decisive decade for our world. A decade that will quite literally determine our futures.”
"We will all suffer the consequences of our failure if we do not come together to address the urgent threats by Covid-19, climate change or enduring threats like nuclear proliferation," he later added.
Mr Biden also committed to a further doubling of public climate finance to help poorer countries tackle the crisis.
The move would see developed countries meet the long-promised goal of delivering $100bn a year for poorer nations to deal with climate change.
He said: "In April, I announced the United States will double our public international financing to help developing nations tackle the climate crisis. Today I'm proud to announce that we will work with the Congress to double that number again."
The US leader also shared his plans to open "a new era of relentless diplomacy" following the end of the 20-year "relentless war" in Afghanistan.
Mr Biden said this can be achieved using the power of development aid to lift people up while US military power "must be our tool of last resort."
Instead of continuing to fight wars of the past, he said we must "work together as never before" and devote resources "to the challenges that hold the keys to our collective future."
He added: "Our own success is bound up in others succeeding as well.
“To ensure our own future, we must work together with our partners. Our security, our prosperity and our very freedoms are interconnected."
With regards to the pandemic, Mr Biden stressed we must "act now" to vaccinate people as soon as possible.
He said the US had a' "no strings attached" approach in contributing more than $15 billion towards the global Covid response including more than 160 million vaccine doses donated to other countries.
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